Agra and Ranthambore

After waking up at 4:45am we headed down to the lobby to meet our guide, after this we left the hotel to see the Taj Mahal before, during and after sun rise across the river. It was beautiful to see, an interesting fact or something informative is that from the photos below it looks like these photos are facing the taj front on but because of the symmetry it was actually taken from the right side. Here are the photos.

After the big Taj we quickly went to visit a site that wasn't very far away, the baby Taj. Although it is called the Baby Taj it should really be called the Mother Taj because it was built before the more famous Taj Mahal. It is close to a replica in the sense of the very thorough symmetry from all sides, inside it houses many of the dead, it also shows versions of inlay and smart pieces of artwork on all walls and ceiling. At the end of the visit a pack of monkeys became known to us and we heard a few fighting, anyway, here are the photos.

When we got back to the hotel we got our bags and headed down to the lobby to go on our drive to Ranthambore, this is when we found that the Aga Khan was staying in our hotel. We couldn't leave the hotel until he left because all his security people and mercedes cars were clogging up the driveway.  If you do not know who he is I advise you try to find him on the internet, he is quite a rich man (3 billion rich) and a prince. Here he is with his family.

After the Aga Khan left we were in our way to Ranthambore, this was a long seven hour journey.  Not because of distance but because of the traffic and speed difficulties due to all sorts of activities on the road.  Here are the photos to show you what we our driver was facing.

Finally we arrived at the Oberoi Ranthambore.  They knew me by name when I arrived and gave us cold towels and watermelon juice and me a rajastan hat and a game as a welcome gift. There were more gifts in our tent - chocolates and cookies with my name on it.  Now I felt like the Aga Kahn

This is our tent which we are staying in.

After we arrived we rested, had dinner, watched Brendon McCullum play in the IPL (his team won but he got out second ball for 4) and then went to bed for 5.30am early start again tomorrow for our first safari.

Joseph Hewson