Honeymoon travel to India - Day 5 – Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur

Right after breakfast we started our trip from Agra to Jaipur. After a one hour drive we reached our first site of the day – Fatehpur Sikri. This city is another world heritage site and is a whole ancient city which is now preserved as an open air museum. It is where some of the moghuls used to live a couple of hundred years ago. It is very well maintained and has beautiful red stone buildings with different styles.

- Fatehpur Sikri -

- Fatehpur Sikri -
- Fatehpur Sikri -
- The biggest gate of the world at Fatehpur Sikri (the one in the back) -

From Fatehpur Sikri we continued our way towards Jaipur. Whenever we have these long transfer trips we are alone with our very kind driver Sunil. This is the only time when we can privately speak to the driver. Whenever we have a tour guide with us we can only speak with the tour guide. The driver is only driving the car. This is a really strange situation for us because we are not used to these kind of hierarchical relationships between the people. The tour guide is on a higher level than the driver is. This means for us that we have to decide which parts of the schedule we want to do with our tour guide and which parts we want to do with the driver only. Whenever we go for shopping with the tour guide the price is higher than when we go with the driver alone. This is because the shops are different. Finally, when travelling from one city to another without tour guide we discuss with the driver when and where to meet without the tour guide because this cannot be discussed while the tour guide is in the car.

- Public transport between Agra and Jaipur -

-Watch your neighbour passenger at the speed of 70 km/h -

Our driver did one extra site with us which is on the way from Agra to Jaipur. This site is called Chand Bawri and is a very nice step well. One of the hidden secrets nearby the big highway street. Because our driver is only the driver we had to get a local guide who explained the site to us. These guys are easy to find because they will find you once you get off the car. Tourist cars have special car plates which makes it easy to know who is a tourist.

- Watch your steps at Chand Bawri -

- Chand Bawri stage area and queen's rooms -

- Chand Bawri -

Afterwards we reached Jaipur. This is a very beautiful and clean city compared to Agra or Delhi. After the long drive of more than 8 hours for 230 km and three stops (Fatehpur Sikri, Lunch and Chand Bawri) we had the rest of the day for leisure in our hotel. We enjoyed this very nice palace hotel and had a very nice dinner on the roof top restaurant together with Indian dancers and singers.

- Enter your suite Miss Macaroni - Oh sorry, correct is Miss Maharani (which is the name of our suite) -

- hotel room suite -

Honeymoon travel to India - Day 4 – Agra

This day started very early in the morning. In order to avoid the big crowds at the Taj Mahal we decided to go there early. So we were the very first ones at the entrance gate of the Taj Mahal. At 6 am in the morning! That was even before we had our breakfast. Being the first ones at the Taj Mahal gave us the chance to have some photos of this amazing and world famous building where we have just ourselves and the Taj. Another thing was the very nice light during sunrise which took the Taj into a really beautiful light. We are still very impressed by the beauty of this building. It is built out of white marble only which gives a very soft feeling. It is hard to find a lot of works for the Taj Mahal – just enjoy some of our best pictures.

- mosque next to Taj Mahal -

- Taj Mahal view in the morning -

- in front of Taj Mahal -

- Taj Mahal during sunrise light -

- Taj Mahal -

- Taj Mahal through one of the arches of the mosque next to it -

- Taj Mahal -

After visiting the Taj Mahal we returned to the hotel and had some breakfast. Right after the breakfast we went to the Baby Taj. This is a very tiny building on the other side of the Yamuna river which crosses Agra. The Baby Taj is built in perfect symmetry and also made from white marble.

- You enter Baby Taj through this nice gate -

- Baby Taj -

Outside of the monuments Agra is not a very beautiful city. It is very dirty and not in well condition. Apart from that Agra is also well known for white marble, leather and shoes. After returning to the hotel after Baby Taj we had some rest in the hotel. The pool is very nice.

In the afternoon we went for some shopping and found nice marble figures and some also nice and good quality shoes. We conducted our day in Agra with a nice Indian dinner.

- You can very often see bike drivers carrying that much of goods -

- Water buffalos at Yamuna river -

Honeymoon travel to India - Day 3 – Transfer from Delhi to Agra

Our third day in India began again with a jet lag who hit us. It is getting better but we could still feel it as we did not really got up in good mood in the morning. Travelling in India takes a lot of time. It took us almost 6 hours for 200km. There is no highway and we had a maximum speed of 90 km/h. Whenever there was a small or bigger city on the way to Agra we got stuck in traffic jam immediately.

- You can very often see such scenes on the streets -

- women carrying stuff on their heads -

In the middle of Delhi and Agra we had a quick stop at a touristic shop of all kind of merchandise. Most important for us where other facilities like the washrooms and a place where we could get some drinks and food.

- this building was in between Delhi and Agra -

You can find very interesting types of trucks in India. They are nicely painted and every truck looks different and individual, the same applies for the horn of these trucks. Indian streets are so funny having people, bikes, cars, trucks, tuk tuks and busses wherever these cars find a good way.

- typical truck paintings -

- this truck carries new cars -

Having arrived in Agra we checked in at the hotel and started for a first sightseeing tour in Agra. We had a new tour guide and he showed us the Red Fort Agra. This Fort is really huge and very crowded. It has nicely decorated walls of red stone and white marble. From the Red Fort we also had a first view on the Taj Mahal.

- Red Fort from outside -

- one of the palaces in Red Fort -

- in front of one of the palaces of Red Fort -

- another marble palace in Red Fort -

- nice light of one of the arches in Red Fort -

- first view on Taj Mahal from Red Fort -

- Taj Mahal on the right hand side in the back -

Honeymoon travel to India - Day 2 – Delhi

Our second day in India started too early in the morning. It was not really early but when waking up we were hit by the jet lag. Our day started with a very nice breakfast at the hotel. This breakfast offered us a huge variety of indian and non-indian specialities. The cooks and waiters explained all the different food to us and gave us some good suggestions. The service was really awesome – we could not even carry our plate from the buffet to our place. This was done by the waiters.

After breakfast we went to Qutb Minar. This is the highest stone tower of the world. As this is one of the religious buildings the number 9 is very important. One example is the height of this building which is 72.9 meters (7+2 = 9). During the visit of Qutb Minar we could see some parrots flying around at some of stone buildings. Some times Verena becomes the attraction instead of the actual monument. Whenever there are groups of young Indian boys they are at least looking at her and some of them are brave enough to ask for the name and from where we are. Once the contact has been established, the next question will always be if we would mind to be on a photo for them. If Verena agrees there will immediately be groups of 8 and more young guys around her. Verena does not like it much to be the attraction.

- In front of Qutb Minar -

- Qutb Minar -

- Qutb Minar -

- Group of small children at Qutb Minar -

- Verena is the attraction - Carsten has to be careful not to lose his wife during honeymoon -

The streets of Delhi are very interesting and completely different from what you can see in European countries. Some of the cars on the streets look like they would not survive the next 5 minutes in traffic. After passing next to the Delhi Red Fort we started a bike rikshaw tour through Chandni Chowk. Remember, we are always together with our personal tour guide who organizes the whole itinerary. He got a rikshaw driver for us and then the tour started. Chandni Chowk is really chaotic and has tons of micro shops and businesses. People are walking around everywhere and in between you always have rikshaw drivers and motorbikes even in the smallest streets in between the house blocks. We could also see an ear cleaner. Cleaning the ears of other people is a very old job in India.

- view on Red Fort Delhi -

- Bike rikshaw view of Chandni Chowk -

- Our driver and ourselves on the bike rikshaw -

- opposite of Chandni Chowk -

- Shops and businesses of Chandni Chowk -

- Daily business on Chandni Chowk -

- Chandni Chowk -

- Chandni Chowk, look how thin this way is and look at the wires -

Right next to Chandni Chowk you can find Jama Masjid which is the biggest Mosque of India and has place for 25 000 people. We arrived there during the end of the Friday prayer and it was really full of people.

- in front of Jama Masjid during end of Friday prayer -

- view on Jama Masjid mosque -

- ear cleaner is still a profession in India -

- Gandhi memorial -

Our last activity during that day was to visit Humayun's Tomb. This building was one of the inspiring buildings for the Taj Mahal. It gave us some ideas of what we could expect for Taj Mahal in Agra.

- in front of Humayun's tomb -

- in front of Humayun's tomb -

- Humayun's tomb -

Here are some more photos which we took during the day on the streets of Delhi.

- next to Jama Masjid -

- truck full of people -

- typical shops on the streets -

- public transport bus - this is already a better one -