So our last day in Delhi we FINALLY went out. And it was a perfect day. It was absolutely gorgeous and one of the most cloud-free skies we had seen in India.
So we go to see the Quwaat al-Islam first, it was something that I had wanted to see but was a little bit far from where we were and not the highest on the list of attractions when people go to Delhi.
It was so cool! It was much more interesting than I expected and we really enjoyed the structure. So the Quwaat al-Islam is the highest free-standing tower in India.
It is also a really important place in Islamic history in India. It was the capitol of the Mughals during the height of their power.
That is an iron pole in the middle of an old courtyard
The architecture was really intricate, well, what was left.
The tower itself:
See? The buildings were a bit decrepit...
But what did remain was still quite large. To give you a picture, going back to the arches from the first picture, I had Drew stand in one and I took a picture.
Huge. And then I walked through it and took a picture of the tower through it.
And of course one with me in front of it. (It took some maneuvering to get this shot...)
After looking at the main structure, we decided to explore a little bit more. It was neat seeing some old places where people had studied or where people went to pray.
A view of the walls and gardens.
It was also neat because there was a really well-preserved area that had a tomb and some really pretty structures. I took my favorite picture of the day at a spot where you could see the tower and the structures:
It was really cool to see how intricate all of the buildings were. It was also cool to see how well preserved they were. Obviously there was some restoration but at the same time these were built well and with care.
After browsing through here for about an hour we went to Humayun's Tomb.
Once you walk into the gates surrounding the enclosure, it's a little interesting. You can't see the tomb at first and you're confronted with some awesome gates.
Delhi has some awesome architecture
We walk through the gates and voila! The tomb!
It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. You can see some of the similarities huh?
A little closer of a view.
We walked around a little bit and then we decided to go inside since it was 1 pm and getting super hot and muggy and we figured eh, maybe the tomb is a little bit cooler.
We went in and saw some cool arches. Also the cool thing about this structure is that it is all carved stone. So the really intricate screens are stone-usually marble. Can you imagine carving that? It would not be good if you messed up...
So we went and saw the tomb. It wasn't anything special. But it was still neat to think that it had been completed in 1571... oh only 440 years previously. It was also sweet because the tomb was commissioned by Humayun's wife.
It was relatively simple but still pretty.
So I love to explore and thankfully I have a husband who follows me a husband who loves to explore with me.
A neat picture of the tomb, to help show the length.
It was a fun picture to take, I literally couldn't step back to get it all in one shot because there are pools of water around the tomb and there was one right there. :(
So we know that we've explored a lot when we get asked by a guard where we are going. I had seen a blue domed structure and wanted to see it and apparently it was just out of the grounds of the tomb structure. Bummer. But on the way back we got to take some cool pictures.
Hubby!
Me!
After this we went back to the hotel since a. we had wanted to see a shop nearby to look at rugs and b. we didn't want to spend too much money (end of trip... starting to go broke :P)
So we went back to our hotel (Hotel Le Roi - they pronounce it LEE Roy [southern way] awesome hotel btw) and on the way passed by the India Gate. It was quick but cool enough.
It was inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
After getting back we met back up with our driver from yesterday to take us to a shop that we had seen the day before but didn't have money. We saw some pretty Kashmiri rugs and wanted to get one.
Obviously we're poor and couldn't afford a whole one, but we got a small one and it's cute and we both really love it.
Ignore the stuff underneath it, I just took the picture when it was on our coffee table.
We decided to just relax in our hotel for a while since we didn't have enough time (or money) to see something else and we just wanted to chill. Our hotel was really nice.
The lobby
And it was cool to look up at the decorations on the ceiling.
Overall we were ready to get back to Atlanta Drew and I were on different flights (I left like 2 hours before him... and he got to fly on Lufthansa... lucky) and so that made things a little interesting at the airport. Advice to anyone who is taking an auto (as in a rickshaw) to the airport... get there early. You have to take a bus to the airport and also make sure to have your boarding pass printed since they don't even let you into the airport (where a lot of the kiosks are....) without seeing one. So that wasn't very fun but I had to leave Drew to find a printing place while I checked in. (He ended up being fine but still.... not comforting when I won't see him for the next 24ish hours).
I got on the plane and it was fun. I got a nice lady on the way to Chicago and we talked for an hour. I tried sleeping but that failed. Luckily by the time I got to Chicago I was tired enough that I could catch some sleep on my Chicago to Atlanta flight. Man, I was so tired of traveling at that point. I finally made it to Atlanta and was cheerfully picked up by my parents. Oi... I was tired though. That day I crashed before Drew even came home. (Again... his flight was later and he had a longer layover in Germany than I did in Chicago).
But we had a blast and we're so blessed to have been able to have this experience. It was phenomenal.
So... when I said I crashed, I really meant it. I had pushed my body so hard for so long that it was done. And so I woke up on Monday (India's Independence Day btw) to a nice, full-blown cold. So Drew and I decided to just relax that day. I slept probably a good 18 hours that day, at least. Poor Drew. He played on the computer while my body was recovering from travel. He had crashed at the train station in Amritsar, so it was my turn I guess.
That night the hotel was having a party on the roof for Independence Day and while I wanted to go, I was just feeling too awful to go. So Drew went and I didn't miss anything. Apparently their Independence Day is a bit of a dud. Everyone has the day off and a lot of politicians make speeches but that's it. There are no fireworks or parades or anything. That's apparently done in January. So the party was just a bunch of Indians getting drunk. There wasn't even food. So Drew just came back down after five minutes and room service it was!
Looking back, I'm super glad that I didn't plan anything for our days in Delhi. Because they would have been COMPLETELY out the window. Most of the attractions that we wanted to see were outdoors. It was interesting because even though it was the monsoon season and there are normally afternoon showers, there was a storm that came through and it rained all of monday and tuesday. That worked out perfectly. Monday I was sick all day. Tuesday I slept in until about noon and wanted to get out of the hotel since HELLO I'M IN INDIA!!! But it couldn't be too strenuous (I was still feeling bad) and preferably indoors since I didn't particularly feel like getting wet.
So we decided to go see the National Museum! I was excited. If I had read their information correctly, then we could get in for 1 rupee each since we were students (and had our international student IDS on us). Woohoo!!!! However we had to pay 500 rupees to take pictures... boo. Oh well, I wanted pictures and I had budgeted the money anyways since from the guidebooks we were told 250 each for entry. Most of the big monuments and sites in Delhi and Agra don't have student discounts, so this was nice. (We had gotten a student discount in Jaipur though, woohoo!)
It was fun! We got to see the entire museum while taking a nice leisurely pace. There were some really cool things in it too!
Mohini- a female representation of Vishnu (one of the first statues upon entering the museum... um... awesome!)
Chamunda
The ten incarnations of Vishnu (carved in Ivory and painted)
Going throughout the museum was... interesting. It wasn't very well laid out. I had picked up a map of the exhibits and where they were and that wasn't actually accurate. All of the "special exhibits" were closed and not ready yet. And even within the displays that were permanent there was some interesting arrangements.
We decided to go from the top down and the first exhibit was textiles! It looked at different textiles from around India. It was actually pretty neat however it bored Drew. What a surprise. :P
A Maharajah's relaxation room
That set up of the Maharajah's room was actually fairly neat. He had donated all of the room to the museum and so it was fun to see the various things in it from the hookah to the cushions to the chess set made of ivory.
However, the bizarre layout became apparent since the next room was "The West" as in the western world.
First up, a little bit of Mexico:
That was actually pretty cool and quite large, at least 2 feet tall.
A Mayan Pot.
It was funny to one minute be looking at textiles and then on the other side of the display area was Mayan pottery. But it got a little bit more schizophrenic.
A French vellum copy of a page from the Bible, 15th century.
There was a little display for some French and English things and everything else was Mayan pottery or artifacts.
I will say that the neat thing about Indian museums is that you can take pictures of stuff that you would not be able to in the states or the rest of the world. When I saw the Albert Hall museum I got to see a mummy and take pictures of it and some of the artifacts! Here I got to do the same with some Mayan artifacts. That's pretty awesome.
Anyways, so the Indian portions of history and art and various other objects were a little bit better organized. Although there were some random things, like an exhibit on Tibetan Buddhists right before the Indian weapons gallery.
Tibetan Buddhist container from Nepal
The weapons gallery was pretty fun. There were some rather nasty looking weapons of war. But one of the coolest things was a full suit of elephant armor!
My hubby looking awesome. :)
It was cool but funny to see since I forgot that Asian elephants are smaller so it wasn't quite as large or impressive of armor as I would have thought. But then again I wouldn't want to be charged by an elephant no matter how small.
There was a really large display case full of coins. It was cool to see ones that I had seen before and also neat to recognize some just from out stay in Hyderabad. (It had the Charminar on it from when those rulers ruled a larger portion of India).
But one of the cooler ones was one from Alexander the Great!
He is my FAVORITE historical character! Woohoo!
Geek moment aside, it was also fun to see some of the art that was displayed in the museum.
A portrait of Emperor Akbar
A painting of Akbar's court
The Bidding of Yusuf
Babur's Journey
and
The Nativity (yes THAT one)
They were all really intricate and fun to look at. At the very end of the Museum was some Buddhist artifacts. They were pretty neat.
In the class is some holy artifacts from Buddha supposedly. It was kinda funny since there was specifically a sign on the glass covering this shrine that said "do not place money here or pray here"
We decided to eat at the cafe at the museum and it hit the spot. On our way back from the museum we got a friendly auto driver for a good rate and saw a touristy place near our hotel before being dropped off there. We actually saw quite a few things we liked, but since we were only planning on going to the museum, we didn't have any money so we told the guy we'd meet up with him at a certain point the next day.
Since I was still feeling sick we took it easy and I got an early start on sleeping that night. I was determined to go out and SEE Delhi my last day!
So after coming in to Delhi at about 10 at night after having an exhausting journey to the north, we check into our hotel (Hotel Le Roi= awesome deal for the price if you're ever in Delhi) and then have to get up at 5 the next morning to make our train to Agra. I made sure that we had the first train of the day from Delhi to Agra so that we could (hopefully) avoid some crowds.
We get to Agra, find a rickshaw and we're carted off to the Taj Mahal. Even though we didn't have a tour guide, because we were (obviously) foreign, we were allowed to go into a different line and get in faster. (Woo hoo!) That was nice albeit a little unfair, but I didn't feel too badly since our foreign ticket to the Taj literally cost 25 times more than theirs. (As in our ticket was about $10 while theirs was around $0.50) Especially for two people who had been living on Indian prices for a few months, this was SUCH a sticker shock. We thought Jaipur was a rip off... Agra tops it by FAR.
So we go into the complex and man. It is SO worth it. If you go to New Delhi and have some spare time make time to go to see the Taj Mahal. We had seen some amazing things at that point (like the Golden Temple for instance) but it really paled in comparison to the Taj. There was just this feeling on the structure. It was so peaceful and always fun to look at. We spent 2 1/2 hours at the complex. There really isn't much there. It's just the tomb and then a few auxiliary tombs/buildings.
One of the first views of the Taj
An auxiliary building
Woohoo! We were there! Although no one can really take a good picture... We had a few Indians, a British couple and some Asian tourists help to take pictures of us and not ONE of them was able to get us in the picture with the whole Taj as well...
Gorgeous!
Yay for getting there early and avoiding a lot of the crowd!
So while the Taj is gorgeous from afar, some of the real beauty can be found in the little details.
The Taj is white marble, while all of the decorations are also stone that has been inlaid into the building. This part has some quotations from the Qur'an and Arabic calligraphy.
A closeup of the inlaid stones, so pretty!
Some of the flower decorations around the structure
This is kinda hard to see, but it is a picture looking up at this archway. It was SO incredibly intricate. Not only was it in the shape of an arch but there were also stars carved within the crenelated pattern of the marble. Drew and I sat here and just stared up for a good 20 minutes trying to figure it out. It's amazing what you focus on when you're exhausted huh? And it's amazing. :)
View of the Taj Complex looking from the platform in front of the Taj. I thought it was a cool pic.
After seeing the Taj Mahal, we decided to go see Agra Fort. It was after all on the list of things to see when in Agra. So we get there and it's fun. But at this point Drew and I have seen a few forts and palaces and it really wasn't as new and fun as I thought it would be. It was still worth the trip, but not as appreciated. I also was to my crashing point so exhaustion played a key role in visiting the place.
Agra Fort!
We go up through the entryway into the entrance (it's a little convoluted) and we reach a really cool and intricate archway. I thought it was pretty neat and showed some really classic Mughal influences on the architecture.
Peaked arch? Check. Geometric designs? Check. Natural color scheme? Check. Star of David? Check? (It was also an Islamic symbol since David is a prophet and also it is seen as a seal of Solomon, also a revered prophet in Islam)
After walking around for a bit and exploring the different areas I needed to sit. So we went to a courtyard and chilled while we watched the crowds of people and admired the architecture.
Awesome courtyard.
I could tell that I was getting to my crashing point, but a. we're in Agra! and b. our train didn't leave until like 6 pm... and it was like 1 pm... So we kept going a little at a time. Taking pictures comes in handy since that's a great excuse to sit down.
Luckily I wasn't the only person who was sitting around different parts of the complex.
Love this picture.
Yeah, I got to the point where I just couldn't go anymore. But we had only seen like half of the structure! So Drew and I went off to a little alcove and he sat down while I layed on his lap. Man, I was out in like a minute. I am the LIGHTEST sleeper and yet I just crashed. I was apparently out for like a good 30-45 minutes. I was just so dang tired from traveling all over India on less than adequate amounts of sleep. When I finally woke up, I felt better but I could tell that I was done for the rest of the day. So Drew was very kind and understood and we decided to speed through the rest of the fort and then head back to the train station.
We get to the train station (to the chagrin of our auto driver- he wanted to show us around a shopping area) and I crash again. We went into the visitor's lounge and I just slept for another hour. However, at this point I had slept enough to be awake, but not enough to fully recover. So I couldn't fall asleep but I was dead tired. So Drew and I had fun exploring the train station. I realize that until this point I hadn't really taken many pictures of train stations, despite having been in like 8 of them.
The Station sign and a train
It's not too much to look at. We kept exploring and eventually ran into one of Agra's more permanent residents:
You can't really tell but he's quite large and I wasn't too keen on getting closer to a monkey while tired.
Our train finally came and we got on and I passed out again. We just went straight back to the Hotel. I can't even remember if we did anything for dinner that night. We probably did something small from room service. Either way, I was done. It had been such a rough experience for the past few days, wonderful, but exhausting. I was finally in a nice comfy bed in a nice hotel. :)
