Travel With Phie

Good morning! 

Shockingly even after sleeping the entire flight, Mac woke me up at 7am as he was unable to fall back to sleep while I was still so groggy. I finally got up at 7:30am, we got dressed and ready for the day. Pavil, Mac’s friend from college graciously invited us over for breakfast at 10:30am. This meant we had about 2.5 hours to kill before heading over. 

We decided to take a gander around the resort, which pretty much just lead us to breakfast downstairs haha. We sat down, ate some light food as we knew we were going to breakfast soon. This meal included a couple pieces of bacon, sausage, potatoes and Mac had some eggs. 

After breakfast, we walked bit more and then headed to Pavil’s. When we arrived, they had the table set, which was too kind. We had a variety of breakfast dishes including Indian style eggs, toast, potatoes, juice, and Indian dishes. We sat ate breakfast, chatted and hung out for about an hour before hitting the road to our first stop of the day. 

Mac needed to acquire all his outfits for the wedding while I needed to get my one final outfit. Pavil brought us to Manyavar to check out some outfits. I had a couple choices and tried them on and was able to find my final choice. We then went up stairs and to the men’s clothing. We shopped for about an hour and half having Mac try on different combinations and final solidified his choices. We were running a bit behind for our lunch reservation, so quickly paid up and headed out. 

We went to Nisaba for lunch which was a relatively new restaurant that Pavil wanted to try. It was absolutely delicious! We (as in Pavil) ordered a couple appetizers, they were all fantastic with the standout dish being the blue cheese filler naan. I thought that as going to be the end of our lunch, but then “we” went on to order main dishes which included a goat dish as well as a short ribs. They were both very good, but we all agreed the starters were a bit superior. “We” then got a couple items for dessert, which originally they included nuts, but then we sent them back to the kitchen so Mac could enjoy. They brought them back out, no noticeable nuts on top and we enjoyed. They were both unreal dishes! One was a mango rice and the other being a tart of sorts. The mango rice was one the best things I have ever had. 

We hung out for a while a longer ordering a lemonchello and espresso liquor. Had some great conversations and an overall wonderful lunch. 

After lunch we decided to brave the heat and walk around the Humaynam’s tomb. First we got some coffees to wake us up from a very filling lunch. We then went to walk around the tomb, starting in the AC of the museum. Once we felt cool enough we moved to the tomb and grounds outside. It was SO hot, but it was stunning and I believe worth the battling the heat for. 

We walked around for ~30 minutes, took a couple photos, and sweated a ton before heading back to get the car and continue our journey. 

The next stop was New Delhi market. We walked around the market for about 5 minutes before heading to a bar to get away from the heat. Once inside, Mac mentioned that he was having a slight reaction (so not fun) and Pavil and him went to get some Benadryl. Pavil and I had a couple beers and waited to ensure Mac’s reaction didn’t get worse. Thankfully after about 30 minutes the swelling in his eyes went down. We finished our drinks and headed back out. 

We hopped in the car and went on our way to the Old Delhi mall. We shopped for a while in the AC and then walked around the streets. We then decided to get a TukTuk instead of walking to the street lined with restaurants. Since none of us were that hungry from dinner, we mainly just took in the views. However, there was a butter chicken restaurant Pavil was wanting to try out so we stopped in. 

The restaurant was 3 levels and there was not a single table, so we waited for a while until one opened. We finally got a seat and ordered a half order of the butter chicken. It was simply just chicken dunked in butter with naan and it was unbelievably good. Once we finished we paid up and headed back to the street to get a ride back to the car. 

At this point Hunter & Molly had landed and we were trying to decide on a meeting point to hop in the car and head on the road to Agra. We (Pavil) found a middle point and we loaded up our new car and said our goodbyes before hitting the road. 

I think about 5 minutes into the ride, we had all fallen asleep to our 3 hour journey (which some how ended up being 5 hours haha). We all woke up at unique points of the drive, whether that was when we were stuck at a toll booth, in line at the gas station, or for Hunter when there was fight about to break out at the toll booth next to us. 

We finally arrived to our hotel at 2:15am, checked in and called it a night as we had planned to get up at 5:00am to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. 

Overall, it was such an amazing first day. Goodnight!