I had the good fortune of visiting India for 2 weeks this April; my travel companions were Alison and Ray and we had a blast together!
We started off in Delhi where I arrived a day before the others, on April 7th. I did some sightseeing on my own: Gandhi Memorial, walked around crazily busy Connaught Place and visited the Jantar Mantar (old observatory) across from the hotel.
By the next morning the others had arrived and we went on a half day tour of some of the sites (President’s Residence, Parliament House, India Gate, Jama Mashid Mosque, Qutab Minar) before driving to Agra.
The next morning we got up early to visit the Taj Mahal (Unesco WH) in the morning sunlight. The Taj is absolutely stunning and is all that it is said to be and then some. That afternoon we visited the Agra Fort.
On Thursday April 9th we first drove to Fatehpur Sikri – about 45kms west of Agra, before continuing on to Jaipur.
The Friday morning we took an elephant ride up to the Amber Fort, which is a well preserved Rajasthani Fort Palace (Unesco WH). We told our guide to skip the local carpet factory but of course before we knew it we ended up in the local marble factory. afterwards we visited the Maharaja’s City Palace, the former Royal residence which is now partly a museum. I visited my second Jantar Mantar as well, this one bigger and better looked after than the one in Delhi.
Saturday Apr 12th we flew from Jaipur to Goa, where we stayed 3 days. We went on a sightseeing drive, visited a spice farm, but most of all we enjoyed our hotel and the beach.
On Tuesday we flew to Kochi where we boarded our nice boat that was to be my home for 6 days (Alison and Ray stayed on longer). Enjoyed a sightseeing trip of which the highlight was the Chinese fishing nets.
Our first day at sea yours truly was seasick, so spent the day watching Deadwood in my room. Luckily I was better the next day and could actually enjoy the boat.
Docked at Chennai on April 20th and signed up for a half day tour of the place.
Started my journey home on April 21st at 1.45am to arrive back in SF on the same day at noon, after about 24hours of travel.
