Photos from India

Day 1 & 2

Hello everyone, this page details how my best friend Amelia and I went on vacation together to INDIA! First off, lets start with how our flight got cancaled. The day we were supposed to leave on there was a freak blizzard that dropped almost 2 feet of snow over Boston. Our flight was cancaled of course, but I didn't know that. Traffic getting into Logan airport was so bad that I had to get out of the car and run through the snow with my luggage for a half a mile to get to the terminal on time. Weaving in and out between parked cars the whole way of course.

So, we gave up trying to get out of Boston that night and Amelia called a few people to get us new plane tickets. If things had worked out right, we would have gone from Logan to O'hare to New Delhi International airport. But thanks to the snow we had to fly an alternate route. We went from Logan (Boston) to La Guardia (NYC) across town on a bus to JFK airport (NYC), then to de Gaulle (Paris, France) and after a 4 hour delay we left for New Delhi International.

It took us almost 24 hours just to get there. India is about as far away from Burrillville, RI as you can get. Something like 12,000 miles away. I swear that I watched the Wallace and Gromit movie at least 4 times on the plane. Not to mention that I read almost half of the Hobbit too.

Ultimately, we didn't get into New Delhi until very early in the morning. After a harrowing car ride from the airport to our hotel we manage to have just enough time to walk out our doors to catch the first tour.

These first few shots were taken of our hotel in Delhi. Marble floors are very common here.

This is the Doorman at the hotel.

These photos are of our first morning In India. They were taken as we traveled by car from New Delhi to Agra. As you can see we passed a caravan of camels, and our driver had a little hindu statue on his dashboard.

This is a fairly typical street in Delhi. The air is almost always filled with smoke in india. No one smoke cigerettes because they are too exspensive, but the burn all kinds of things in the streets. People start barrel fires to keep warm at night. They burn dried cow dung here because its a very cheap, clean fuel. And no, it dosn't smell. In the counttry side they also burn sugercane before they harvest it. they had sugercane everywhere too, it was great in my morning chai.

The streets are filled with little rickshaws like this one. some were manpowered (biked or just carried), but most were automobiles.

This is the enterance to the Red Fort in Agra. All the doors are huge because they were built with elephants in mind.

This is one of the towers at the Red Fort.

I have no Idea what this straight away was for, but It had special textured cobstones so that the elephants wouldn't slip and fall backwards.

The emperor that built this fort had three wives, one islamic, one buddhist, and one jewish. To honor each of them, he put the symbols of each of there religions on this gateway. The arch, the lotus flower, and the star of david.

The amount of detail they put into the buildings is just amazing. All of this was carved by hand. Here again you can see the symbols of the different religions. The elephant trunk is islamic, and the lotus flower is buddhist.

I love the domes and spikes here. They look like something out of Planescape. The fence in this picture is made of marble by the way, the holes are each careved out in a complex pattern.

I this photo you can see a few other people that we met on the tour. The guy on the far right, with the glasses, he is the Malasian ambassador to India. I'm not kidding. the two girls are his daughter and wife, and the guy with the sweater vest is our tour guide. They were all very nice, the ambassador had a lot of interesting stuff to say. He told me that he got to take tours all over the country for free. Thats a nice job perk.

I like this photo.

Why o why did this girl decide to take one step to right at that moment.

As you can see this room was once covered in gold. unfortunatly, looters took off with all of it a hundred years ago. Now, only this small patch remains untouched.

This is the incredible view from the top of the Red Fort. You can't see it in the photo, but the Taj Mahal is a faint shape in the distance here.

I want a balcony like this in my place.

Nothing in India is painted on, all of this is stone inlaid with the marble. The black is oynx, and the green is jade. I don't know any of the rest.

This balcony is just to the right of the other one. I like the other one better, but this one would look at my house too.

This is a photo of Amelia and I sitting on An emperor's throne! Its made of a piece of solid black onyx that is worth 37 million USD! AND I"M SITTING ON IT! sorry, it was really exciting..

This is the courtyard of the Red Fort, where the emperor would sit with a small group of people to listen and talk.

well, there it is, the money shot.

more domes...

This is actually the entrance to the Taj Mahal.

Well, here it is, the money shot. The Taj Mahal was built from 1630 to 1653, and today is considered one of the seven wonders of the world. As legend goes, Emperor Shah Jahan was so in love with his wife, Mumatz Mahal, that when she died he had this tomb errected to symbolize his love for her.

As you can see, the Taj is just HUGE.

This building is perfect, there isn't a single flaw in it anywhere.

This is one of the towers that flank the Taj Mahal to the left and right.

Again you can see the black onyx inlaid into the marble

And just like the fence before, this screen you see here is made of single blocks of marble.

I like the soft pattern of neutral colors the marble makes in this light.

The lady in blue.
This is the last photo I took on this day. After the Taj Mahal we drove back to New Delhi and our hotel rooms. That night we finally got some sleep, it was the first time I had really had deep sleep in about 3 days.