Delhi - Jaipur - Agra (Golden Triangle)

SORRY, NO PICTURES, I'LL PUT THEM ONLINE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

So, yes, Marti's luggage has arrived, and i was honestly amased to see that she has an even smaller bag than i do :) (yes, i was worried that she'll take too many things with her, shame on me...)

After hiring this lovely taxi for 4 days, after that first short sightseeing in Delhi the next day we went to the delhi red fort first, which is really huge. We've spent ca. 1 hr visiting it, when it turned out that what we've seen so far is only half of the whole thing.... What you have to know about the fort is that whoever has the fort, has the power over india (it was a military base until 10 years ago....), so entering it was already a challenge with metal-detectors, motozas, etc. And it is called red, because it is built using a relly nice shade of red sandstone - a bit darker color than tha stone used to build Petra. After the fort we went to pick up the luggage and pay the rest of the tour - this was the minute when i realised that i don't have money on my card, so Marti had to pay for me... (don't worry, i was transferring money from my other account so i have cash now. of course donations accepted :))).
There were two more things we wanted to see in Delhi, but one of them turned to be too expensive and crowded, so we didn't go in, and the second one was a temple, looking really much like the Sidney Opera. This temple is a main "House of Worship" for the Baha'is, some kind of a religion (sect...) mixing hinduism, christianity and islam. Weird, i can tell you. besides, they have a visitors centre with no toilets at all....

And in the evening we set out to get to Jaipur. the road was ca. 4,5 hrs, on a real motorway (ok, no game fence - vadvedo racs), sometimes some cows walking around, no lane-painting (felfestes), but we managed to go with an average speed of 80khm. quite good, though it relly felt like running into death sometimes :(
But we arrived safely and sweaty. Because we paid for a non-AC car, but during the first day in Delhi the driver had the AC on all the time (i guess that was the time when i got my cold), and i guess he wanted us to ask him to use the AC, so whenever possible he was parking in the sun. But soon he had to realise that we really don't want AC :)

Jaipur itself is a magic. Beautiful. There's a huge fort, and there is a city-wall all around the hills surrounding the fort. It means that the walls are at least 50km long. And the fort is full with elephants, and smaller and bigger staircaises, so we completely lost our way when we were about to leave. oh, and lucily it was raining heavily while we were in the fort, so at least now Marti also knows what's the monsoon :) (guess she was not really interested in this information....)

And the hotel in jaipur. The driver was supposed to know a good - cheap - hotel in J, but of course he didn't, so took us first to a hotel that was 3* more expensive than our budget, but then we got to another hotel, which was just facing a really lovely palast in the middle of a lake. We even got up at 6 to have some nice sunrise pictures of it. Yes, 6. We're great.

And las night we got to agra at last. (on the way also visited another fort, the ghost city, that was built, but later they realised that there's no water... so it's empty, apart from a few houses specialised in asking for money from the tourists. it was the worst so far, every two steps someone asking for a pen, chocolate, offering guided tours, rickshas, etc. etc.etc. horrible).

And this morning we've seen the Taj Mahal. It is just exactly as on the piuctures, just even more beautiful and much-much bigger. (getting up again at 6, lucily Marti's also set an alarm, because my telephone decided not to wake me up.... so we got ready for the Taj-visit in 15 - FIFTEEN - minutes, the both of as (shower, dressing, packing, etc.). We are great, right?)

The whole taj was built in a way to hold, so the platform the Taj is on also houses two more (fully identical) buildings, so that they make a better balance. The towers around the Taj are bending outwards by 3degreees, so that in case there's an earthquake, they don't fall on the Taj... And that the guy who's built the Taj also wanted to build another similar building for himself in black marble on the other side of the Jamuna river opposite to the Taj, but his son decided that it would be too much money, so put dear Daddy into the red fort of agra in prison (from there he also had a view of the Taj). So the complete simmetry of the Taj is only broken at one place, in the tomb, where the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal is in the middle, and his lovely husband's tomb is next to hers, slightly shifted to the left.

The stones in the Taj are from all around the world, even from Belgium, and it's just amazing. Really. Pictures coming up.

Now we're leaving for Aurangabad (20hrs trainride, khm :) ), i really hope that there'll be some internet so that i can upload my pics.