Mughals and their buildings

We are back from Jaipur and Agra. We left on Friday morning and got back yesterday night. It was good times.

Friday we drove to Jaipur, stopping on the way at the Amber Fort which was the Mughal capital of Rajasthan. Parked at the base and rode up on elephants. We spent a few hours there then left again for Jaipur arriving around 4:30pm. We had planned to go out to the central palace that evening but it was closing at 5:30, so instead we spent the evening before dinner in downtown Jaipur shopping. The hotel that we were staying at was amazing... AMAZING. Super classy, nice rooms, hot water, TVs, real mattresses and bedding, the works.

The next day we went to the wind palace and the central palace and stopped to look at the water palace from outside. Some things about Jaipur: It's the capital of Rajasthan, it was the one of the first planned cities ever, and downtown Jaipur is entirely painted pink to honor the Prince of Wales when he visited in the 1850's.

We stayed another night and left early the next morning for Agra. We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri which was absolutely amazing before continuing to our hotel in Agra. We ate, then went to the Taj Mahal. I was worried that with all of the pictures and hype that the Taj gets, it would be a bit of a let down when I got there... you know, that it would be smaller that it looks in pics or something like that. NOT THE CASE. The Taj was amazing! There is a reason that it's one of the 7 wonders. I would gush more but I think it will be better if I just wait until you can see the pictures.

The next morning our group had a planned trip to Agra Fort but a lot of people (Roxy and I included) decided to stay at the hotel and take our last opportunity to sleep in on real mattresses in a room with AC. We took off back to Delhi around 1:30 but before leaving Agra we made a quick stop at the tomb of Akbar the Great. The tomb was astounding, the grounds were perfectly kept and full of peacocks, parrots, and antelope. It rivaled the Taj Mahal on everything except scale. From there it should have been a 4-5 hour drive to get back home, but it took us 8 hours because of traffic.

It was a great trip and great experience. We should have the pictures up soon; but we took about 400 pics and it will take a bit of work sorting through and resizing them.