The rest of the Taj trip

Since there were too many photos for the last post- I wanted to finish up our trip to Agra. We already have so many from this past week here in Chennai! Here’s the trip back to Delhi- including some more from the road… It’s still super crazy in Chennai but not quite as much as there.

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Taj Mahal & Agra- WOW! (Wonder of the World)

Our trip to Agra was the most amazing, interesting, fascinating road trip I have ever been on. From Dehli, it took us almost 6 hours to drive to Agra (probably around a 2 hour trip in the US) and here is a list of all the things on the road with us (and why it took 6 hours!) Vehicles- trucks & cars (medium & large), buses (filled to overflowing with people hanging off & on the roof) motorcycles (with up to 4-5 people on them!)  bicycles (plus bicycles pulling people [rickshaws] & carts) auto rickshaws (basically a three wheeled motorcycle with a cart on back- made to seat around 4 people comfortably, but usually filled with up to 15 +) carts pulled by horses, oxen, camels & people and tractors. I’m sure I forgot a few, too. Then there are the animals & people- THOUSANDS of people all walking on & crossing the roads all the time! And cows, horses, donkeys, goats, pigs, camels, dogs, chickens & monkeys everywhere… it is just totally CRAZY! As much as I enjoy driving- I don’t think I could or would here. But the car trip was just the beginning as Agra itself proved to be a really cool place. The first night we were in our hotel (with a view of the Taj from our room) there was a wedding- fireworks, loud music, dancing- the works. I would really love to get invited to one while we are here! The Taj Mahal was one of those places where you can’t believe you are actually there after seeing it in photos since childhood. It is of course even more amazing in person- up close you can see the marble is inlaid with semi precious stone- very intricate & beautiful. You can definitely see why it took 20,000 people 22 years to build it! When the kids could no longer stand the heat we got to visit the factory where they are still making the marble today. Some of the pieces that are inlaid are the size of a fingernail clipping- so much work. We also visited a rug making factory (men sitting at a loom hand knotting – some rugs take up to & over a year to make) a silk embroidery place, several stone stores & the kids also got some native wear. In between all that we also visited Agra Fort- where the royal family who built the Taj lived. The palace in it’s heyday must’ve been amazing! We finished up that long day on the back side of the Taj (across the river) where the king started a masoleum for himself. It never got completed because he died soon after starting…but it’s a beautiful place to watch the sun set on the Taj. The next day we made the long journey back to Delhi- and we left early to make sure we didn’t miss our flight. We arrived at the airport at 4:30 for our 7 PM flight that was delayed until 11:30! Thankfully there was a play area where the kids were able to burn off some energy with the other kids from the flight. We finally got back to Chennai around 3AM- exhausted but with some wonderful memories! OK-  realized after writing this it really was too many photos for one post.. SO, here are the photos of getting there & our day of sightseeing. I’ll put the rest in another post later.




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INDIA- WOW!!!!

That pretty much sums it up!! We have been so on the go (3 plane flights in four days plus two 6 hour car trips..) and not had an internet connection so I’m really far behind on the blog. On top of that almost a thousand photos and it’s after midnight here so I’m going to have to just post a couple & will have to do another post later. It’s hard to even begin to describe all that we’ve seen in the past five days. It’s pretty much a total sensory overload here- I have been completely overwhelmed. We’ve met so many wonderful people, eaten so much amazing food & seen so many incredible things I could fill pages. Here are just a few photos from our trip here. Our time in Agra will have to be a different post…

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Sentosa Island

Sentosa is known as “Asia’s playground” and we did play pretty hard there! From the ski lift up/luge down combo & the endless tile water feature to the suspension bridge to the “Southernmost point in Asia” it is a really neat place. And we barely scratched the surface of all there is to do there. Oh well- you gotta leave something for next time… and speaking of- today is our last day in Singapore! We will definitely miss it- we’ve had an awesome time here. But on to the next adventure- India, which I’m sure will be every bit as amazing (in fact probably much more…) I’m looking forward to being immersed in all the colorful sights, sounds & tastes (but maybe not as much all those people- a billion!) Stay tuned!

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A few different outings…

Here are some highlights from the past few days…I can’t believe our time in Singapore is ending soon! We met Naylor & several people he works with to have a Singaporean lunch called “Steamboat.” There are big pots in the middle of the table and all kinds of different things are brought out to put in & cook- kinda like fondue. The dumplings & veggies were good- I wasn’t too crazy about the seaweed. The kids & I went to see Despicable Me- we really liked it. We went back to the Art Garden with Naylor- still great but MUCH more crowded since it was free! And finally on Saturday we rented bikes & rode down the East Coast Parkway- a 15 mile stretch of bike/hike trails along the coast. Naylor & I got a tandem & the kids got a kid sized one, too. It was a beautiful day-they did really well together & it was SO CUTE! :)

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Art Garden- Beach walk/Dinner

There is a special exhibit just for kids right now at the S’pore Art Museum called Art Garden- Edie had seen the commercial (!) and really wanted to go. Well, it really delivered! In fact- we are planning to go back this Fri evening when it is free. From the Enchanted Forest to the Freaky Forest- we really enjoyed ourselves!

After all that fun, we met Naylor on the bus on our way home and went down to the beach for an evening walk. We prepared for heading to India next week by having dinner at an Indian restaurant, Komala’s. It was so good I forgot to take a picture until we were done!

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Fourth of July- Singapore style!!

Since they don’t celebrate it over here we decided to celebrate all things Singapore…. by seeing the city. And I mean the WHOLE city- all day. By bus (the open-air double decker kind) by boat (the somewhat cheesy- SA river style barge) and by stomach (eating Singapore-ean food at the amazing Newton Circus.) Happy fourth!

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Thieves Market

Well, if you know me, you know how much I love to thrift! So in that tradition- we headed over to Singapore’s version of a “flea market”- the thieves market. It was supposedly originally named that since it’s where people sold stolen merchandise. Not sure where they get the junk today- but some if it might well have come from five finger discounts… and that’s what most of it seemed worth. We also had to hold back on our purchases since we will be buying so much in India! But we had fun anyway….

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Checkin the RSS feed

The mermaid

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Out and About

The internet was down for the past three days…. bummer! But we are back on so I’m going to condense a few outings into one post.

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