Rolling along the Indian highway...

 Here's an update on our latest destinations so far...

Pushkar


After leaving Udaipur, we made our way to Pushkar.  This will be the smallest city we visit on the trip (around 15,000 people).  It is built around a holy lake with a temple dedicated to the lord Brahma.  The lake has 52 ghats, or places where pilgrims can go and bathe themselves in the holy water.  If you want to stroll along the lake, you must take off your shoes and go down the stairs to the water.  No photography is allowed at the ghats, but I didn't realize this and took some pics... oops!  There are also a lot of monkeys climbing on the temple grounds near the lake... they were pretty amusing to watch.  Pushkar was a short, relaxing stay.  The next morning we were on to Jaipur!



Near the holy lake in Pushkar

Jaipur



Jaipur is a city of 2 million people or so, and is the capital of Rajasthan.  Our driver, Mr. Gopal, was from Jaipur... but sadly we were a bit annoyed with him by this point.  We ended up parting ways with him for the remainder of the trip in order to save money.  In Jaipur, John and I visited the Hawa Mahal, or "Palace of the Winds."  It is Jaipur's most famous landmark and was built so the royal women could look at the city through the small carved openings in the facade.



Palace of the Winds in Jaipur

We also watched our first Bollywood movie in Jaipur... called "Don 2" at the Polo Victory Cinema.  Tickets were just under $2 and even though the movie was in Hindi, we could understand most of what was happening since there were a lot of key lines spoken in English.  It was an action movie so most of it was just fighting and car chases anyway!

Agra

This brings us to our current destination, Agra.  After parting ways with our driver, we made our way to Agra by train from Jaipur.  The train was 5 hours or so, but we got sleeper class tickets and I was able to take a good nap after waking up ridiculously early to get on board.  The main reason to visit Agra is to see the Taj Mahal.  Since we arrived on a Friday (when it was closed), we decided to just chill out and enjoy the backpacker area.  Our hotel has an amazing view of the Taj.  The first time we went up to the rooftop restaurant, it was shocking to see that the Taj was right... there!  Less than 200m away, it looked like a fake backdrop hanging there.

The Taj was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to India, and it did not disappoint...