Our World Travels...

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...

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 ...