Taj Mahal and the Land of the Kings

Well, after 3 weeks in Varanasi, we're on the road again for the next month! It's been an adventure so far... for a while we didn't think anything was going to go as planned in India.

 

Our plan was to go to a National Park/tiger reserve. We took a 9hr train, got picked up in this teeny little town at 10:30, and drove 2hrs to the park. We found out the next day that this year the government changed regulations so that only a third of the amount of tourists were allowed in the park. So, that means that now the big hotels buy all the permits in blocks and little guys like us on a budget don't have a chance in the world of getting the permit. So... that left us doing this at our guesthouse for two days:

 

our little cottage guesthouse

We didn't mind TOO much, as the fresh air and greenery was very refreshing from the big city. I just had to watch out for the massive monkeys with ginourmous tails. I have developed a legit fear of them since one jumped at my face through a window (the bars stopped him) in Varanasi!!

Then we took an overnight train and spent 14hrs cramped like this... gotta love sleeper class. This is one level up from our initial general seating tickets when we first arrived in India!

Andrew faking a smile - he wasn't comfortable at all.

We made it to the infamous Taj Mahal. Big bonus: it was incidently World Heritage Day and admission was free! Saved ourselves $46 in fees this day, whoo hoo!
The Taj was pretty cool. The most incredible part was the insane arcitecture. It was built in the 1600s and the WHOLE THING IS SOLID MARBLE. It is almost all etched with intricate carvings, studded with precious gems. Amazing.

Even more cool, was the Agra Fort. It is over 1000 years old! The walls are 30m high and used to be surrounded by a river, and where the river ended, a crocidile infested moat. I can't even describe how massive it was. The history is insane: centuries of people groups fighting to hold the fort, dozens of different rulings. There were thrones from sultans from different rulings, and the man who built the Taj for his deseased wife was actually inprisoned in the fort by his son for the last 8yrs of his life. His inprisonment was overlooking the Taj.
Here we are in one of the gardens:

Today and tomorrow we are in Jaipur. It was so hard to get here - we had to take a train where the tickets cost 3x more than our regular ones because the only seats open were in a higher class. But it was amazing, we're talking provided bedding, AC, pillow, curtains and they came to sweep the garbage off the floor. I wished it was more than 5hrs, lol.
Jaipur is in the state of Rajasthan, in West India. It borders Pakistan. It translates to "Land of Kings", so you can imagine the royal history here. We will be here for the next week, and as tourist have been joking, our time will consist of "palace-fort-temple-palace-fort-temple".

At the top of a tower overlooking Jaipur

Outside the City Palace

Tomorrow we are going to a[nother] fort, one of which we can probably ride an elephant to get to the top! Also seeing a temple and another fort... haha.
Jaipur has amaaaazing shopping! And it's not in overwhelming, dirty, 20million-people-in-1sq-km! There are streets and shops and easy bartering... mmm. My pack got mighty heavier after today... and I'm happy to say that I now have an anklette on each ankle. Back story: in Varanasi, I bought one silver anklette and wore it proudly... til Melissa's national friend asked her in Hindi why I'm only wearing one - one means that you are a prositute. Shoooot. So I happily reclaimed status back today, and and double jingly now :)

And, what's funny about Jaipur, is this: I've aquired enough "Indian-garb" to blend in: traditional clothing and my signs of marriage (red marking on my forehead, bangles on wrists, toe rings and anklette(s). BUT I had more people comment to me today that "You are Indian?"... "You live in India?"... "You married in India?"... "You look Indian madam!"...than I had in Varanasi! These people are used to white people looking western and so now I stand out because I look Indian. I can't win!

EXCITING NEWS:
We made the decision: one can only take so much temple-fort-palace touring, so we splurged and bought flights to Goa, South India to live on the beach for a week in a hut! We contemplated: 30+ hrs on the train each way, or 3hr flights. It was a multi-day debate, but the flights won out! Dec 3 we fly south... CAN NOT WAIT!

Til then... temple-fort-palace, temple-fort-palace...