Day 52: Taj Mahal

Hi! I'm exhausted and this day isn't over yet. But I'm exhausted in a good way because this morning we got up SUPER early. It went something like this... 

I was having this lovely dream. I don't even know about what. But I was enjoying the fact that I wasn't having weird nightmares (which has happened a few times during this trip) and then all of a sudden there was this lovely music in my dream. It was kind of indian-ish and really soothing. 

Then all of a sudden I hear, "Guys, if we are going to do this we need to do it now". Israel. For a few seconds I was sooo confused. Where am I and why is Israel waking me up when the alarm hasn't even gone off?? 

I sat up and realized that the lovely music in my dream was actually our alarm. Why did we think that was the best one to choose last night when we went to sleep? It was way to soothing. 

So we kind of stumble around our room trying to find our stuff and trying to make sure that we don't forget anything this time. At this point we are expressing how glad we are that we took showers the night before because the morning is cold and the water is even more freezing. haha These mornings are rough sometimes but they are also bringing in a lot of great, funny memories. 

We took a rickshaw across the Yamuna to go to a garden where we could see the Taj from a nice angle. And there you go. This is what we saw through the smog/fog of the morning. 

It was breathtaking. And at the same time Carly and I were in the weirdest mood haha Just too much cold and too much excitement and too much tired all at once. While we were here we met this Russian guy that thought that seeing the Taj from across the river was probably just as good as going into the actual complex. I'm pretty sure he's a crazy if that is even a debate going on in his head. Who comes to Agra IN India and doesn't go INTO the Taj Mahal? Crazy.

Then we went back across the river and went into the Taj complex. I'm of the opinion that the Taj can not be overrated. If you feel it's overrated, I'm sorry, but please try to build that without any modern day technology and then I'll consider it.

This is the last picture I took as we were leaving. This place gets PACKED. 

Then in the afternoon we went to the Agra Fort. This is the court and palace where Emperor Jahangir (Akbar's son) lived. The Taj was cool and it is definitely my favourite, but there was something awesome about being somewhere where a whole society lived. I could just imagine the people that used to spend every day there... wow. Kind of eery and really personal. 

After the Agra fort our friend/tour guide brought us back to his place to meet his family and at this point we were just really tired and he wanted to show us the whole of Agra so we found a way to excuse ourselves and head back towards our hostel. Instead of going there though we decided to stop at an internet restaurant. And we have been here for... three hours now? I had some delicious rice pudding, ate some dinner, watched some MirandaSings and caught up on my blog. Haha we don't really have anything left to do in Agra but we take a train at 11 tonight so we have to find something to fill our time... 

I'm sure we will have some weird adventures trying to catch our train and traveling at night again but for now I'm going to sign off. 

Tomorrow we will be in Varanasi-- That's the place I was supposed to do my internship last summer! It is a major Hindu pilgrimage, an ancient city and a site right along the Ganges. 

Till tomorrow!

Stéf