National Lampoon's Indian Vacation

Short post today, as not much has happened. Well apart from leaving the plane tickets for Udaipur to Mumbai and Mumbai to Goa in a safe in Jaipur that is!!! I put them in the safe to make sure they were, erm, safe! I can't quite believe it really, but it wouldn't be a Mouseburger blog if it all went smoothly. Anyway, I have spoken to the hotel we were staying at in Jaipur, and they have sent me faxed copies on email, which my current hotel has kindly printed out for me, so I am hoping that covers us really, as they are just e-tickets.

We have had a bit of a lay in this morning, which was a welcome relief from the early starts, although that said, my body clock woke me up at 5:30am as I could hear all the birds singing. I haven't got much to write about as we have done little today apart from being in the car for about 4 hours driving from Bijaynagar to Jodhpur.

The journey is long and there were the usual cow obstacles to contend with and the occasional herd of goats, but otherwise it was a drive through the Rajasthani countryside. Some things have changed though, there are more hills to negotiate and drive over and there is a strong wind blowing across the open expanses.

For a while I worried that the wind meant we would be greeted with a Gambia weather scenario (see the Gambia blog) when we got to Jodhpur, but these fears were soon allayed when we stopped off for a comfort break and I opened the car door to be blasted with a wind which could have come from the fires of hell!! It was scorching out there, and I had been lulled into a false sense of security, even thinking it a bit chilly in the air conditioned car we were driving around in!!

 To help pass the time when driving (Sarah was having an in car snooze) I started looking at the shop signage as we were driving along, and I noticed a curious thing. Cement is big business in India. I guess when we want cement, we just pop to B&Q or Homebase, but in India there is a whole gamut of choice. I then started doing an Eye-Spy of cement brands I could see advertised to help pass the time on the journey. There is Wonder Cement, UltraTech cement, Bangur cement, Rockstrong cement, Jaypee cement, ACC cement, Lakshmi cement and Ambuja cement. There is a hell of a lot of building and development going on around India from what I have seen, so I guess cement is big business here!

Finally, we approached Jodhpur where we met up with our local contact (Singh), who had a most impressive handlebar moustache! He was very enthusiastic about Jodhpur and welcomed us to the city and explained what we were going to get up to in our time here.

We are staying in the old part of Jodhpur at a boutique hotel called the Raas Haveli which has views of the fort. I have to say this place is spectacular, we have a balcony overlooking the fort, and the room is superbly cool, which is a relief as the days here are just getting hotter and hotter (42 degrees)!! This is definitely one of those hotels rooms which you will always remember, it is that plush (we even have a bath which has views of the Fort!). Anyway other than settling in, we have done very little after getting to Jodhpur apart from dipping in the pool and drinking beer!

I will however give you a couple of snaps, to whet your appetite. 

View of the Fort from our room

The Fort at night from the Roof bar! I will never forget this view!

Tomorrow we do a proper tour of the city, so we will need be mindful and pack plenty of water as it is supposed to be even hotter again!

Jaipur - The Pink City

As I write this post I am in a lovely air conditioned car driving away from Jaipur having spent the morning touring the city and seeing some of the lovely sights. The car has Wi-Fi so I can catch up on all the trivial little details of life (i.e. Football results) too!

We are off to a place called Bijaynagar which I think is halfway point between Jaipur and Jodhpur, so a nice rural place to get a feel for the real Rajasthan! But before all that let me tell you about our day so far. The tour started at 9am and we went off to the Amber fort (also known as the Amer fort) which is a fair way outside Jaipur. Our guide was Davinder and he was very good entertainment making us smile with his views on life and making note that almost everything in life is good with a nice scotch (apart from yoghurt).

He was very informative, but also gave us some flexibility to wander and take some time to explore the fort. It is impressively perched looking down at Amer which is a part of Jaipur, but slightly outside the city from what I can tell - there are also impressive walls stretching over the mountainside (according to the guide they stretched over 13km). There are three things to see in the fort really - the audience hall of the king, which seems to be a theme in all the forts I have been to thus far in India, the palace of mirrors, which must have been built by a load of crazy magpies and finally the harem.

The Amber (Amer) Fort - blooming big!!

Main courtyard at Amber fort

Ganesh Gate (he is above the door) - make a wish as you walk through

The Mirror Palace - Sarah wants our bathroom decorated like this!!

No Fort/Palace is complete without a Harem for the porcupines...

The fort is impressive in its scale and so I took a panorama shot of it (I like my panoramas now that I have discovered them!!).

Panorama of the Amber fort, plus some of the fort walls (and some cows sitting in a lake to cool off)

After the fort we drove back down and got a photo of the Water Palace - a pre-Udaipurian hors d'oeuvres, before we go to the Lake Palace. The Water Palace is now owned by the government and nothing seems to be being done to utilise it, which seems a shame to me.

A great Bond villain lair, if only the government would allow it to be used!

From there we moved on to the Jantar Mantar which is the name of the observatory built by Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, which I have to say is both surprisingly interesting and amazing - the sundials are accurate to 2 seconds apparently and to test my guide I asked him to tell me the time using the sun dial. He looked at it and said he thinks it is 11.08am - he was wrong - according to my phone it was 11:09am! I was still suitably impressed, although a part of me replayed the scene in Crocodile Dundee where Mick checks Walter's watch before going over to the girl and impressing her with his sun positional skills....

The guide used this sundial to predict the time to within 1 minute - impressive!

Me next to my starsign's sundial

The observatory was a mishmash of steps and triangles and was like some crazy Escher drawing, or the ending of the film Labyrinth, but you couldn't knock the genius of the mathematics behind it all! The emperor was a big fan of mathematics and astronomy and there is even stuff here to help work out people's horoscope - so you could say he was a 18th century Russell Grant. It, along with the Amber Fort, are both World heritage sites, taking our tally on this tour so far to seven!!

After the observatory, we went to see the royal palace, I think Sarah is reaching her palace limit now and just wants to relax a bit more (I haven't told her that Udaipur is known as the City of Palaces yet, so keep that between you and me!) . Anyway, the palace was very nice but the main feature of it was probably the courtyard with the four different gates and the reception room with the solid silver chairs which unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of. Someone tried to surreptitiously do this with an iWatch, and judging by the commotion and the amount of guards that appeared and escorted him out, I figured it prudent I kept my camera in my pocket.

The Royal Palace, Jaipur

Finally, we visited the Palace of the Winds, called Hawa Mahal. I was expecting this to be a curry house offering particularly spicy curries, but it was a facade linked to the royal palace which allowed the women (concubines) in the palace see what was going on in the Main Street. It is just a facade really, but is very beautiful and one of the signature buildings of Jaipur.

Palace of Winds - You might think I'm being arty with this shot, but it is just a facade

Now the countryside is flying past and we are weaving in and out of lorries on the road from Jaipur. I can't believe how fast the time is going - we have almost been away for a week and so are a third of the way through the trip! That is all for today, hopefully we will get to our hotel at a decent hour and be able to relax by the pool!

***Update**

We have arrived at Bijay Nawas Palace by mid-afternoon and the weather here is getting hotter, I mean really hot!! The first thing we did after check-in was head straight to the pool!! The hotel is a former hunting lodge of some minor Indian royalty I believe, and they have kept the period features so it is a real step back in time to how things might have been. There is no Wi-Fi here which means I am writing this offline and will post it when i am in Jodhpur (hopefully).

Back to Bijay Nawas. I think we are the only people here, and they have given us the best room in the hotel. I feel like a Maharajah with the size of our room, it is just a shame we are only staying for the night, as this is a stop over to break up the long journey from Jaipur to Jodhpur. We have a spacious lounging area, a lovely big bedroom, our own dressing room, and a bathroom. On top of that, we have a large balcony on which to sit out on, but unfortunately due to this being rural and they are currently harvesting, it means that if you sat out there for too long, you would be bitten to shreds by mosquitoes and flies.

Our bedroom - spacious!

The lounge area

The balcony - we didn't do it justice!

All that said, it is way too hot to be sitting outside anyway, the temperature at 10:30pm is over 30 degrees (don't feel jealous, it is uncomfortably hot!!). All I want to do is lie on a bed of ice cubes in a room with the fan on full blast.....

Ele-fantastic!

Thankfully it was a bit of a lay in for us this morning, and we slept soundly until the alarm went off at 8:30am. This gave us enough time to pop and have some dosas for breakfast before heading out for the day.

Today is a break from touring bits of rubble and looking at stone slabs as we have booked in to see an elephant sanctuary where we can meet, feed, paint and wash elephants.  The elephant village is some way outside Jaipur so we had the traditional journey through the hectic roads, which were more reminiscent of Delhi, than Agra. I will try and describe them to you, to give you a flavour. Imagine a road as wide as the M25, throw in the following obstacles: cows (commonplace), goats, pigs, camels, people on push bikes, people on trikes with trailers, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cars, buses, lorries, people walking in the road and people with wheelbarrows full of random stuff. One man was even wheeling a bike with lots of 30 foot long steel pipes in the middle of the road! There is no lane order at all, the slowest people can be in the outside lane or in the middle of the road, slowing everyone down, they don't seem to care, it is just part of the way of life here. All in all, it makes for a very entertaining journey, as you never know what you are going to come across on a drive around the city. 

I will say it again though, our regular driver it nothing short of amazing, he not only knows where to go in every city we have been to so far, he is a genius at driving these roads without getting into any bumps or scrapes (touch wood!). In short, he is the calm in the eye of a hurricane, or the oasis in a desert of chaos!

Anyway, I digress. Back to Elephantastic. The man who runs the place is called Rahul, and he is clearly passionate about his elephants. The elephant we were assigned was called Chanchal, which is either Hindi or Sanskrit for "Mischievous". Rahul told us that until three years ago, she was in a circus but they rescued her from that life and at the moment she is 12 months pregnant, so it seems like the future is a lot rosier for her than it was, even if she is completely blind in one eye, and has a cataract on the other (which they said they will sort out soon, so she can have partial sight again).

We started off the day by learning how to prepared food for her, and her owner (a mahout whose name I have shamefully forgotten) gave us a few keywords so that she knew we were friends. We were taught to prepare her food in nice little bundles all neatly tied together, and I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to have a trunk come and search you out to find its little food parcel!! "Lay" is the word we used to get Chanchal to take the food we had prepared for her, and "Dhar" is the word to get her to eat it!

Sarah making food parcels for Chanchal, under the guidance of the mahout

The food parcel met with Chanchal's approval

Being blind has dimmed Chanchal's personality at all, she is quite cheeky. If she felt that we had not given her a big enough in her parcel of food, her trunk would snake back to us as if to ask for a bit more (Sarah was a lot stingier with her food parcels than I was :P)!!

After feeding Chanchal and establishing a bond of trust, we were then allowed to paint her however we saw fit. The mahout explained that the paints were all water based and natural, so we were reassured that we were not slapping any Dulux on her at all. At first we were tentative with painting an elephant, but soon enough we gained a bit of confidence and were happily covering poor Chanchal with all sorts of colours and words. 

Sarah opted for pretty flowers, while I was a lot more factual with my painting, putting our names, location and the year on her body! Although for an added bit of randomness, I decided to draw the 1980s children's TV show character Wizbit on her side too.  Following the painting we got to walk our elephant and give them a drink, which Sarah loved doing, and then we got to hose her down and wash all the paint off of her body, which inevitably got us a bit wet!!

Sarah's paintings on Chanchal were very decorative!

My graffiti was more fact based.....

....although Wizbit made an appearance (for some reason!)

Then the mahout asked me to grip Chanchal's ears from the front really tightly and put my foot on her trunk. Before I knew it, I was being elevated into the air and planted on her head, albeit with a bit of panicked scrambling on my part. It was awesome to see just how powerful this magnificent creature was, as she lifted my ample frame as she would a twig!

We obviously did a rubbish job of hosing Chanchal that she had to do it herself!

There I was sitting on an elephant and I could see exactly what was going to happen next......Sarah was feeding water to Chanchal's trunk and with a swift arch of the said trunk I was blasted with water (much to my lovely wife's amusement!!!). I was sopping, but thankfully the weather is 39 degrees, so I didn't mind too much. Then it was Sarah's turn to climb on board. She was reluctant knowing that karma was about to balance itself rather quickly, but she climbed up the trunk gracefully ;) and sat at the front, astride Chanchal's neck. Now I had protection from being sprayed!! :D

Me getting hosed down!!

The aftermath which Sarah found very funny!

We both got a good hosing of water and elephant snot, and didn't have any clean clothes in which to change, but we didn't really mind that as we were just enjoying our time with the elephants. The plan after this was to go on a ride with the elephants, but to be honest neither Sarah's or my back would have been able to cope with being buffeted around on an elephant for an hour or so, so we reluctantly had to decline this offer and cut short our visit.

Sarah, gracefully mounting Chanchal and about to get soaked. Karma!

Anyway, that is our day with the Elephants, and all the excitement has worn little Sarah Bear out, because as I am writing this, she is sound asleep next to me. Tomorrow is a day of touring Jaipur, before heading out on the road towards Jodhpur, where I am hoping I will be able to buy a decent pair of riding trousers!

Taj Mahal sunrise, Baby Taj and Jaipur here we come

As I said last night, it was an early start this morning because we wanted to see the sunrise at the Taj Mahal. Friday's the Taj Mahal is closed to all apart from Muslims who can go and pray in the mosque to the left of the Taj. We were going to watch the sun rise from the banks of the river opposite in what is known as the moon garden (Metah Bagh), which gave us arguably a better view of the Taj Mahal than from the traditional entrance. Luckily (I am not sure Sarah would agree, as she has had another early start!) we were also the first tourists there so had prime location on the banks.

Taj Mahal from the Moon Garden - very peaceful!

Taj Mahal with a bit or morning sun on it! Also no people in shot!!

Unfortunately you can't predict the weather, and the sunrise was obscured by cloud, but it didn't detract from the beauty of the scene and we spent a good 40 minutes there just feasting on the wonderful view before us, and I got some lovely shots.

My camera ran out of battery and I discovered the panorama feature on my iPhone!! Arty!

After that, we moved onto a tour of the Baby Taj, which was a tour we were supposed to do yesterday, but had to postpone due to sore feet! The building is actually called the Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah but is nicknamed the Baby Taj in order to get more support and tourism money, as it is not on the normal tourist trail as far as I can tell. This is definitely a hidden gem of a place, as the artisanship of the stonework is a sight to behold which makes it more intricate and detailed than the Taj Mahal, but it loses out on impact because of the size in comparison.

The temple was completed before the Taj Mahal and according to Yesh incorporates numerous different influences in the design, taking influences from India, Islam and China. An advantage of it being off of the usual tourist route is that this place was empty apart from me, Sarah , Yesh and a group of howling monkeys and chipmunks. We were in our element (I love a quiet historic site!) as it meant that I had no tourists obscuring my pictures - just how I like things. 

The Baby Taj, intricately detailed and noone in sight = Mouseburger Heaven!

With our touring done for the day (by about 8am!) we retired back to the Hotel and had a lovely Indian breakfast. this was our first experience of a dosa and we were not disappointed - they are scrummy! I think Indian culture loves to feed people, as by the time I had tried all of the breakfast curry options I was fit to burst and if I am not careful, I will return from the holiday looking like a Zeppelin, rather than the barrage balloon I currently am!

The morning finally caught up with us and we went back to the room for a sleep, which we did until 12pm! Thankfully I asked for a late checkout as we were not catching our train from Agra to Jaipur until 5:40pm, so we had a few hours to kill. We filled that up with a walk towards the Taj Mahal, which we thought might have some tourist restaurants we could drink at, but as I mentioned earlier, the whole area closes down, so there was no luck there. This was probably a good thing for us though as today was by far the hottest day of the holiday so far (scorchingly hot!), and even walking for about 10 minutes I was sweating pigs, and so we retreated back to our air conditioned hotel and spent the afternoon drinking in their bar (it is a hard life I know!).

We boarded the train to Jaipur and it was completely different to the Agra express, as the carriage we were in was practically empty. apart from a couple of backpackers. It was a longer journey too, made even longer by teasingly stopping about a mile from Jaipur station for about 30 minutes for no apparent reason. Still, we made it to the station and met our guide (who gave us a welcome card and a bottle of wine!) who has taken us to the hotel.

Jaipur station - eventually!

Another nice bonus was that we have been upgraded again in our room (to a place near the bar - they know their guests!! ;) ), and as an additional welcome to, we have been given another bunch of roses and a pineapple cake.

Let them eat cake! Another lovely welcome gesture from the hotel!

After a couple of cocktails at the bar, the long day has caught up with us and we have decided to retire for the evening, as tomorrow promises to be a busy day painting elephants!

Agra-vating circumstances!

Thankfully we had a wake up call this morning, which meant at 4am we were getting ready to head off and catch our train. Our Audley rep was as punctual as ever, and we were driving along the streets of Delhi in what was relative peace and quiet. I say relative because even at 5am there was a hustle and bustle that just doesn't exist in the UK!

It was on our journey to the station that the rep asked me if we had our passports, as the ticket inspector would want to see some form of identity to make sure we were supposed to be on the train and were sitting in the right seats. It was at this point where I realised we might have a slight problem: to save the effort of loading all our cases on and off of the train, I decided to ship those on ahead with our driver, Partap. Even more unfortunately, my passport was in those cases and winging its way to Agra by car!!

I had visions of being kicked off the train, but our Audley man managed to speak to the train inspector and come to some baksheesh style "arrangement", where he would accept my driving licence as an alternative form of identity! This was a welcome relief which meant we could sit back and enjoy the countryside roll by. It was an interesting journey, and reminded me of my time in the East of England as the land was flat as the eye could see.

Agra Station - the trains are mahoosive!

The carriage was an advert for full employment, because as far as I can tell each executive class carriage had its own group of staff serving their needs. Anyway, this is the order of the staff that came and visited us on our journey.

1) man bringing us a complimentary newspaper 

2) ticket inspector (who thankfully accepted my drivers licence!)

3) man bringing us a teabag and biscuit (nice cup of tea even if the bag said Tetley on it!)

4) man bringing hot water for tea

5) man clearing teacups away

6) man bringing cereal and warm milk 

7) man clearing cereals away

8) man bringing breakfast roti curry (I think)

This helped the time fly by and before we knew it were were approaching Agra station and ready to disembark. We were met by another friendly rep, Nitim, who took us to our hotel, and persuaded them to let us check in early to allow us to freshen up. It seems like we were upgraded as our room is on the executive floor, and later on that day we were presented with a dozen red roses and an angel cake, which were a very nice gesture, although we are no sure what to do with the roses considering we are leaving tomorrow and i am guessing they wont travel well!!  

Roses and a cake welcome gifts from the hotel!!

Still back to the tour. We freshened up and within an hour our new guide (called Yesh) was waiting to take us to the jewel in India's crown, the Taj Mahal. It is every bit as spectacular as you imagine it to be, and Yesh clearly loves telling you about it, as he made us not look at the Taj until we could see it through the gate, his reasoning being that should be your first impression of it, not a slightly obscured view you could get on the approach.

The warm up act - the Taj Mahal is through that gate

I always believed two facts about the Taj Mahal. 1) It was built for the love of Jahan's wife, and 2) that the mausoleum has the entire scripture of the Qur'an etched onto the marble. Apparently not according to Yesh. He told us, Jahan's wife died before it was built and there are only passages from some of the Qur'an there. Nevertheless, even with these myths dispelled, I can safely say that this is one of those places you have to do before you die and you won't be disappointed.

There she is!! B-E-A-U-tiful! You wont be disappointed

Indeed it seemed that the day I choose to see it before I died was the same day as a hell of a lot of other people from all around the world (how very dare they!!), so the place was busier than a Primark 80% off sale! Of particular interest was the "Diana bench" where the princess of Wales sat in a carefully stage managed shot, rich in symbolism pointing towards her disintegrating marriage to Prince Chuck. I tried to get Sarah to re-enact the pose, but she was having none of it!! Yesh told us that the actual bench which everyone thinks is the Diana bench actually isn't, it has been moved.

Looking back on the North gate from the Taj Mahal

Inside the building it was pleasing to see the Indian's have had the foresight to make sure people wear the special feet protectors to prevent damage to the marble, which the Egyptians had neglected to do for so long! As a side note, it is also really nice to see so many Indian people passionate about their heritage and wanting to see it. Unlike in Egypt, the majority of the visitors to the sites I have seen so far have been domestic rather than international.

After the Taj Mahal we moved on to the Red Fort, Agra which is even more impressive than the one in New Delhi in my opinion. I guess it is a matter of taste, but the one in Delhi seems so much more politically oriented, whereas this fort seems more aesthetically pleasing  (or it did, until the Brits ruled India and they used the audience hall of the King as an ammo dump!!).

The Red Fort, Agra - completely different to the Red Fort, Delhi

The kings audience hall used as ammo dump for the British army

There are some lovely buildings in the white marble variety, which evokes memories of the Taj Mahal, and so it is no surprise to find that the Emperor who built the Taj Mahal, also had a hand in the building of this one (before being imprisoned there)

The Emperors Harem - Note: the women in shot are not his concubines!

I suppose a main advantage of this fort which made it all the more impressive was because of the fact that you could see the Taj Mahal from certain vantage points.The builder of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan, was imprisoned in this fort (by his son) but he was afforded the luxury of being able to look out and see his handiwork every day with a lovely balcony over the edge of the fort.

The balcony at the Red Fort. Oh Jahan, O Jahan, wherefore art thou Jahan?

View of the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort, Agra

The ceiling was laden with gold, but was melted off and taken away by invaders

Can you spot the swastikas?

After the Red Fort we were suppose to go and see another mausoleum, nicknamed the Baby Taj, but again the heat and feet had got the better of us and poor Sarah had to miss walking around half of the Red Fort as her feet were so bad, so we decided to call it a day on the touring to get some rest.

Yesh, when he found out about the bites and the pain Sarah was in, went out and got us some local antihistamines and I have to say the improvement was noticeable and Sarah can now walk again without any pain! That said though we decided to stay in the hotel tonight and rest up from a whirlwind couple of days and indulge ourselves in a bit of room service! It won't be long until we are up again (another early start tomorrow, 4:30am - a slight lay in compared to today's start!) as we are going to watch the sunrise over the Taj Mahal in the morning before getting on a train to Jaipur that afternoon.

Day 2: Old and New Delhi

Our first day proper in touring, and we have toured like it is going out of fashion! I will give you a quick weather update: it is lovely and hot here, with no need for cardigans or full length dresses. And Sarah doesn't need to wear those either.

We started out at 9:30am, which means we had to be up at 7:30am to get washed and breakfasted before the tour. I have to say the breakfast we had was more like a banquet, we had a toast course, crepe course, omelettes and fruit (we could have had more toast if we wanted to, and we also passed up the cereals course). I was completely stuffed to the point that I didn't need anything more that day until dinner later in the evening.

Our guide and driver were punctual and we were soon on our way through the Delhi rush hour. The city is huge and as such it means getting around it takes a *long* time, because there are all sorts of obstacles in the road, most usually cows. I am not talking back roads either, these are multi-lane carriageways and there are herds of cows in the middle of the road. Being sacred to the Indians, it means that there is a lot of swerving and dodging that needs to be done to avoid hitting one. this has a knock on effect to the rest of the traffic, and like a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world creating a hurricane in another, there are large tailbacks.

The rules of the road here seem to be: "if there is space then fill it; if there is no space then create some and fill it!". A lot of beeping goes on, and most of it is good natured and trying to inform other road users you are near them.

Anyway, I digress slightly. Our first stop on the tour was to look at the Qutab Minar - a Victory tower which was built using, according to our guide (Jai), the stones from the old city walls by Islamic invaders in the 11th Century.

Qutab Minar in all its (morning) glory!

Another shot of the Qutab Minar

It was very impressive, standing a full 70 metres high (no small feat for the time it was built) and Jai told us that there were plans to build a Minar over twice as high next to it, but the man who commissioned it the Qutab Minar died before it could be completed. Jai gave us some time to potter around the site taking photos and clambering over the rocks, before moving us onto the our next site.

Chipmunks are commonplace, and not shy, they will come right up to you.

Humayun's tomb is an impressive mausoleum and you can see the influences of it in the Taj Mahal apparently (we will find out tomorrow). Sarah's way of remembering this particular World Heritage site was by reference to the large amount of stone slabs in there!! We bimbled around the beautiful gardens surrounding the tomb and it was here that we noticed there are a lot of dogs in India and they all seemed to congregate here. Although I can't say I blame them, there are lovely gardens around the tomb, with plenty of shady spots to lounge in and if they get too hot they can, as we witnessed one dog doing, sit themselves in one of the pools of water.

Our first view of the tomb from the entrance gate

Humayun's tomb a.k.a. the thing with the stone slabs!!

Humayun's tomb, it is more impressive on the outside than within.

After that, we moved on to the Red Fort, Delhi. This was the third World Heritage site of the day, and while energy levels were flagging, I think we did it justice! The scale of the walls was epic by any standard; about 2/3rds of a mile in length and over 100 feet high. Even at this early juncture of our touring around India, the general impression I get about some of these wonderful sites follows along the lines of "yadda yadda yadda, and then the British came along and knocked that beautiful building down to build a barracks/ammunition store". This is certainly the case with the Red Fort where apparently over half of the inner buildings were knocked down to make way for barracks when the British were in India. For shame. 

The Lahore gate is the main gate at the Red Fort and is where, since independence, the Prime Minister comes on Independence Day to hoist an Indian flag and deliver a sort of "state of the union" speech to the people. The moat by the gate is full of cannabis plants and the fumes they give off is a very heady brew indeed (if you like that sort of thing) and I did wonder if the fumes inspired some of the Presidential speeches.

The Lahore Gate at the Red Fort, Delhi - no political speeches today though (thankfully!)

The smell coming from the moat reminded me of home!

After we walked around the fort, and due to a combination of my back hurting me and Sarah's swollen feet (she has been bitten to pieces and really reacts to the insect bites), we decided to give the mosque a miss and retire home for a sleep and a chance to put our feet up. It is no lie that half of our day of touring was taken up with driving around Delhi, which meant for a long day. The roads are so manic and busy that to get anywhere you need to give at least an hour.

That evening, after some painkillers for me, and some anti-histamines for Sarah (god, we are sounding like a right crocked couple these days!) , we headed out for a meal at the Spice Route, which is considered to be a lovely restaurant. The hotel hired me a taxi for the night, and from the journey to the restaurant it was clear how lovely a driver our pre-assigned one through Audley (Partap) is. This driver was undertaking, flashing, and beeping anyone who didn't get out of his way and on several occasions we had other irate drivers pulling up next to him to shout what I can only infer was the Indian equivalent of a swear word(s)! Still, he got us to the Spice Route physically, if not emotionally, unscathed.

As for the restaurant, I think we were spoilt on the first night with the authenticity and homeliness of the Shanti Home's food, and so we were underwhelmed with the Spice Route really. This had in part to do with the wine list which you would need a second mortgage to afford! there were bottles of wine on the menu for 120000 rupees, which if it was not a typo would set a traveller back about £1500! (i didn't dare to order it to find out!).

Anyway, that sums up today and i am heading off to sleep. We have an early start tomorrow as we are catching the 6am train to Agra to go and see the Taj Mahal! Fingers crossed we get up in time!!