After a long time we made a joint trip with our friends Nitasha and Vivek. It brought back memories of our previous trips together to Las Vegas, Europe and camping in chill of Michigan during fall.
After a lot of deliberation and inaction regarding a good palace to visit we finally narrowed down to Jaipur and Agra. It turned out to be a wonderful trip and got etched in our memories for ever.
Day 1:
We flew from Bangalore to Jaipur reached there by 2 PM.
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| Flanked by the boys..! |
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| The ladies and girls |
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| He Poked me....! |
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| Patiently waiting after ordering food |
Rishabh seemed to be the most prepared for the trip, he had done his homework and pretty much gave us ideas about what might be good. That evening we headed to a place called Choki Dani.
On the way there the driver tempted us to some authentic Jaipur shopping and claimed it to be a outlet center. Slowly we found that the driver and the traders all join hand in hand to lure tourist like us. We were not really sure if we had a bargain on the cloths and goodies being sold. Being culpable we did end up shopping for a few items. After that we headed out to Choki Dani. It was a place that was supposed to display Rajasthani tradition and supposed to have a good buffet of Rajasthani food.
It fell way below our expectations and the quality of food was pathetic. The place gave us a feeling of being cheated. After we returned, I was driving to office one day and realized there was a Choki Dani right here in Bangalore....! :)
One of the things we liked about Jaipur were the wide streets and friendly people.
Day 2: So we were now better prepared today based on our experience last evening. As it turned out, it was one of the best days of the trip.
The fort is magnificent with a stream of elephants taking people to from the entrance to the fort at the bottom of the hill to the top. Here are some pictures and they speak for themselves.
From Ajmer fort we went to see the largest wheeled cannon(jaivana Cannon), apparently it was never used. It is one massive piece of engineering located in the Jaigasrh fort.
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On our drive back from the fort we had a good view of the Lake palace.
Day 3:
Was spent shopping, visiting Jantar Mantar, city palace, city museum, Birla Mandir and Hava Mahal. By now we were getting tired of forts and kings and their stories from numerous guides.
We retired early that evening as we had an early morning train to catch to Agra.
Day 4: Taj Mahal, here we come
We took the early morning Shabtadi express to Agra. It was a relaxing journey. The approach to the Agra fort rail way station is not a very appealing scene. It appeared like an city where basic human needs had scant regard.
We bargained with the auto driver to take us to the Gateway Hotel that was where we stayed for the night.
The hotel was very nice and since it was still early in the day the kids hit the pool right away. It appeared they could care less for the historical importance of the place and this was the only best part of the vacation.
After spending a few hours at the pool we had lunch headed to Agra fort.
Ahh.. Darn....! I forgot to take my camera in the confusion about finding a good place for lunch. Vivek.. where are the pictures from yours?
Day 5: Waah Taj...!
The Taj is really impressive and worthy of being one of the wonders of the world.
We headed to the Taj early hoping to beat the crowd, despite reaching there by 8 AM the place was packed. The haze from pollution left a blurry vision even from a relatively close distance. You can see them in the pictures here.
That afternoon we took a Thavera(Jeep) to Delhi and headed back to Bangalore. While at the Delhi airport we ran into Nishanth's class teacher, she was also returning from a trip for Jaipur, Agra and Delhi.
