Baby Taj Mahal from the rear. Photos by Frank Sharp.
By Frank Sharp | My wife, Pearl, and I had always wanted to take a trip to India. Fortunately, Pearl found a Cyber Monday package deal from Friendly Planet tour which included the airplane ticket on Air India from JFK to New Delhi for about $1,500. Normally, the plane ticket itself would be about that much. This price included all hotels and meals, except lunch, and all ground transportation. Wow. We scooped it up.
We came to New York a day early. After touring New York City, we caught the Air India direct non-stop flight from JFK to New Delhi. It was packed. After 12 hours, we finally landed. The food served onboard was good and the flight was smooth.
Traffic in New Dehli
Friendly Planet was our tour company, which we have found in the past to have superb travel guides, a most important consideration which can make a huge difference on a trip. We took what is called the Golden Triangle Tour of New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and then after nine days back to New Delhi to catch our plane home,]. Our agenda did not include any crowded downtown streets. Our hotels were mostly on the outskirts of the cities. We were told by our guide not to eat any cut fruits or salad and to stay away from ice.
In New Delhi, we boarded our air-conditioned coach and stopped first to visit the Mahatma Gandhi burial site. The flowers were beautiful.
Next stop was the Gate of India, patterned after the famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris. There was heavy security and a few sleeping dogs in the street. Then our group took the rickshaw ride in Old Delhi. It was a bumpy ride because of the many potholes in the street. We saw a few monkeys playing on the roofs of buildings.
Our bus then made the four-hour drive to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located. It was a pleasant drive on the flat plain. There were hardly any trees as we know them, and mainly small wheat fields.
We first visited the “Baby Taj,” which some people consider as attractive as the Taj Mahal itself. Our bus stopped by the Yamuna River, a holy river that empties into the Ganges, running behind the Taj Mahal for a river view. It was a muddy polluted river, hardly a Blue Danube, but still attractive in its own way.
Next day, we got up very early to see the sunrise and to miss the huge crowds that visit India’s most popular attractions, the Taj Mahal. It was built in the 17th century by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as an expression of his love for his wife. The Taj took 22 years to build with 20,000 men; the white marble was quarried over 200 miles away using a herd of 1,000 elephants to transport it. Although the Taj is noted for its stunning symmetry and balance, the close-up marble inlay work is really astounding. It is the most beautiful building I have ever seen.
Next day the highlight was an elephant ride at Amber Fort. Later we visited Jaipur, called the Pink City and the Palace of the Winds, which is a beautiful beehive-like structure of red and pink sandstone with white borders and motifs.
Once our trip to India was finished, we took the non-stop flight to JFK from New Delhi. This took 18 hours because we were flying against the jet stream and the rotation of the earth.
What a wonderful, and relatively inexpensive, trip!
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