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Showing posts from July 19, 2009

Jaipur - The Pink City

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Eric and Laura in front of the Palace Gate at the Amber Fort in Jaipur, India Without a doubt, Jaipur was our favorite place in India. It is in the state of Rajastan, which is a LOT less crowded, busy and dirty than Dehli and Agra. First of all, our hotel was absolutely wonderful and wonderfully cheap. It was just like a European hostel, with a common room, and a great affordable restaurant, but we had a private room, with cable, our own bathroom, A/C, and it was so clean and immaculate. From the rooftop restaurant, we had a great view of the fort across the street, as well as great food and a great view of the rest of the city. We fell in love with the place. There were lots of other westerners staying there, so we got to socialize a bit even, which we had been desperately missing. The reception was great too, and helped us out with everything we needed, without trying to make a quick rupee. We were even provided a free “Jaipur for Aliens” booklet written by the hotel owner, which was

Agra - City of the Taj

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The view from our hotel! We caught our first Indian train in the afternoon, reaching Agra from Delhi in about 4 hours. We hopped in a prepaid taxi to our hotel, where we promptly crashed out in our room. Apparently the booking website had told us that the hotel had air-conditioning, however, our room did not. Later the management explained to us that the site stated that the hotel had A/C, but not in every room. So we argued our way into an A/C room and felt much better after that. Tech them to mislead us, ha! Our hotel was pretty cool though. We were very close to the Taj Mahal . In fact, the hotel had a rooftop restaurant, where you could eat while looking at the Taj over the treetops. Our first night we ran up there and drank a beer while watching the Taj and the sunset. We spent our time in Agra relaxing and watching some TV. We walked around the streets a bit, spent some time on the internet booking future travel plans, purchased some needed supplies, and took a few pictures