Travel With Phie

Good ~loopy~ morning! 

After a nice 2 hours of sleep, we woke up ready to get the day started with one of the 7 wonders of the world. 

We met Molly & Hunter in the lobby at 5:15am and started our walk to the Taj Mahal. Our hotel was in a perfect location, where it was only about a 10 minute walk door to door. We started our walk and it was sprinkling a little bit which wasn’t ideal but also wasn’t horrible. We finally arrived to the Taj Mahal around 5:30am and got inside around 5:45am. Going in the morning was wonderful because it wasn’t very crowded and with the rain, it seemed even less crowded. 

We walked in, went through the gate and had our first view which was stunning, even with the rain. We stood under the entry way for a while, admiring the view, and maybe even more so, hoping the rain would slow down. Everyone seemed to be taking turns running into the rain to take a few shots with no one around and we joined into the cycle. 

After our photos and waiting for the rain to slow it finally did and we continued to move closer. While we were walking closer to the structure there was a beautiful light rainbow right by the Taj which made the rain a little more appealing. After shooting a couple more shots we continued to see the tomb inside. 

We got our shoe covers and headed inside. The tomb was stunning, all marble and in a little echo chamber. We made our way through and then continued to walk around for a little, while Mac and Hunter continued to give us fun facts. This included how many pounds of marble are estimated to be used? Answer: 30 million tons. Completely wild! We then exited and headed back to the hotel to get breakfast. 

The breakfast at the hotel was shocking really good. We began to realize that the safest meal for Kenz was breakfast and I think he had 6 hard boil eggs. We ate, chatted and hung out before calling an uber to the Agra Fort, we debated walking but it was so warm we decided an uber was a better choice. 

We arrived, got our tickets and headed in. Mac provided the history and guided us through the what the top sites were (via our tour guide or as more commonly known as Claude). We made a loop around the fort with the most notable site being a peacock through one of the lookout points which Molly had spotted. We all enjoyed the view and then the peacock opened up fully and was doing a little “dance” and it was so cool to see live and in-person. We continued to watch until it had finished and then we continued our journey through the fort and the gardens.

Once we saw all the sites we decide to walk to a coffee shop which was ~30 minutes away. It wasn’t until we arrived to the shop, that we found out it didn’t have AC. It was at this moment that I thought I would pass out and truly realized how hot it was outside. Their card reader was down, so we ended up having to switch places and decided to look more closely if they had AC.

We ended up switching over and going to another cafe nearby that did have AC which was must needed. We ordered some mocktails and hung-out in the AC for a while before calling an uber back to the hotel. 

We got back to the hotel and packed up our bags and met our driver to start our journey to Jaipur. We got in the car and I think not even 20 seconds later we were all asleep and on our way. As most of us slept the entire ride, the 4 hour drive was very easy. We arrived to our Jaipur hotel and checked in. 

I think we all had bags under our eyes and could barely stay awake, but made it to our rooms and decided to meet at the pool after we got settled. Mac and I fell asleep and then went to the pool and Molly, Mac, & I all fell asleep again. We were exhausted. 

After about an hour of napping by the pool, we decided to go back to the rooms, change and grab a drink at the resort bar. We went to the bar inside the resort and each ordered a cocktail, and everyone except me also ordered a special Indian Whiskey. We played a game of euchre, chatted and debriefed the day. 

After a while, we decided we didn’t want to go back out and picked a restaurant at the hotel for dinner. Hunter, Molly, and I split a couple dishes, while Mac got his own due to his allergies (lamb byrani- one of the only things he could ever eat). The food was incredible, especially the pannier. We were again stuffed and about to fall asleep at the table so got the check and headed to bed. 

Goodnight!