The Golden Triangle (Jaipur, Delhi, Taj Mahal)

Next up on our journey through India we hit the so- called "Golden Triangle". The Golden Triangle consists of 3 places, New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra (where the Taj Mahal is) and is aptly named because they form a triangle on the map. It is often among the first destinations for travellers to India and because of its firm place on the tourist trail has got some better infrastructure than our first couple of stops did. The streets are slightly wider and slightly cleaner, there are a wider variety of restaurants and cafes and the chaos is maybe a tad less crazy.

Before I dive into the specifics, I have to admit that we were probably not in an ideal mindframe to be making the most out of these experiences in India. Continued gut health issues mixed with background stressors in terms of work and family left us in a bit of an exhausted state, not really up for tackling the challenges of travelling in India like we might have at other times. But lets be honest, travel cannot always be all rainbows and butterflies, sometimes there are phases that are more challenging and times when one is feeling less curious about the world and the little setbacks feel bigger than they normally would.

With that in mind, we still had some good experiences. For instance in Jaipur we spent a day cruising around the bustling streets on a "Scooty" (heartrate >1000 bpm) in order to get to the famous palaces and city gates that give the city its nickname "the pink city". Its really more of an orange colour, if you ask me, not pink. But pretty nonetheless!

And we spent one peaceful afternoon having a closeup encounter with a gentle giant, an female elephant called Shaku at an elephant sanctuary. We got to feed her, cuddle her, go on a walk with her, paint her with natural earth colours (which she enjoys!) and then give her a good wash in the end. Being so close to such a huge creature is a bit intimidating at first but her gentle eyes and deliberate movements make you feel at ease very quickly.

Delhi is a huuuge bustling city with some of the worst smog we have ever seen. Especially in the mornings there seems to be a thick fog hanging over the city making it hard to see more than a few hundred meters from our balcony. This is one of the reasons we didnt really take any photographs there. We ventured into the heart of the city once by metro in order to try and buy a train ticket to Agra from the main train station. Thankfully we had read up beforehand about the most common scams because as soon as we stepped out of the metro, we kept being approached with all sorts of shady excuses all eventually leading into them wanting to sell us something or lead us to their cousins travel agency, telling us the official train ticket office is closed (not true) etc etc.

We did get to catch up with Hadleighs friends and work colleague Binny though, who was gracious enough to invite us to her home and cook us a delicious chicken biryani.

Finally we went to Agra, the city where the Taj Mahal is. The city itself is not much to look at but that is of course not why people come. We opted to go to the Taj Mahal complex twice, once in the late afternoon and once at sunrise to see it in a different light. Even before the doors open for the day at 5:45am, there is already a line of people so you have to be lucky to get a shot of the Taj without a throng of people in the picture. But there is no denying the fact that this tomb is majestic and has an air of serenity and peacefulness about it. In our opinion it is one of those famous tourist attractions that is actually better in real life than on photographs. And there are some cool spots to look at it from afar as well, for example a park on the other side of the river and from the Agra Fort through its windows.

After all these cities we were hanging for some nature... so stay tuned for the next chapter :)