Tag Archives: New Delhi

When in New Delhi and When in Agra

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Okay, so, last time I posted, I was in Bangkok the night before we took the plane to New Delhi. Since then, we have done a lot of things, and I will do my best to catch everyone up on the details.

When we woke up on the morning of the flight, we all took showers and went in the shuttle to the airport. At the airport, we got our tickets, went through security and passport control to get to our gate by the United Lounge.

When we finally got to New Delhi, I had watched a movie and taken a nap. In the airport, we sat around and drank coffee (mochas for all!) for about two hours before heading to a taxi to get to the train station. The station was very crowded and loud, and since our train hadn’t arrived yet, we had to stand around by someone’s underwear for about an hour!!! The underwear was on the railing of a balcony, and we think that it was out to dry.

On the train, however, we had reserved some seats so we got to have our own private sections, one for the girls and one for the boys. The train was called an express, but it stopped about ten times before finally reaching Agra. At the train station, we found a taxi driver that was supposed to pick us up and we drove to the N Home Stay.

The N Home Stay is a four story building with about three rooms on each floor, minus the bottom floor, where the landlords sleep. To Eryn’s sadness, there is no pool, but on the bright side, we sweat so much that it is like being in a pool all to yourself!

Today we went to the Taj Mahal, the Agra Red Fort, the garden across from the Taj, and the miniature Taj. I am going to focus on the Taj Mahal because it was my favorite.

The Taj Mahal is an old building that was built by an emperor for his third wife after she died. It took twenty years to build, and the emporer himself was buried alongside his beloved (third) wife in the marble building along the river. It has multiple gates, and today we had people who wanted to be our guides everywhere, following us for a while. However, as soon as we started walking up the steps, they disappeared. Hmmmmm, strange.

Entering India

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We arrived in Agra last night at eight after five hours on the plane and about four hours on the train and too many hours awake. While on the ramp out to our plane, I picked up an Olympic magazine, which kept me company along with A Thousand Words on our flight. Once we landed and went through customs and immigrations, we got some cash, water bottles, and mochas. The mochas were delicious, and so was the Oreo brownie Ethan got. My peach and banana cake was bland and dry.

We got into a rickety taxi at Post 36 and rode to the train station. It took forever and gave us some more near-death experiences. Once at the station, we waited until 4:30 to go down to the train. The doors finally opened and we piled on. We were seperated because, if you will recall, we got these tickets last week because of our visa problem. Mom and I had seats 17 and 18 in AC-1 and Dad and Ethan had seats farther down but still in the same car. In case you’re wondering, AC does stand for air-conditioning.

After several delays, we arrived in Agra. A man named Shakil picked us up, and he joked how he was Shaquille O’Neal. Shakil drove us to a place for supper where we had naan, rice, lady fingers (okra), and two main dishes. He then took us to N Home Stay and we finally went to bed. Ciao!