yesterday dad went to work and mum and I stayed at the hotel until three in the afternoon.
then I got a camel ride.


everyone say's its hard to ride a camel but its not.

then mum and I went to a Jewellery shop and I bought a  pear of earings and so did mum.

they also showed us how to make the jewellery you can also have them make a design of your one but you have to pay more for them to only make one for you sorry we did not get a photo of the place.

then our driver  toke us to the mharajha's  tombes 

there  are a lot of monkeys there.

then mum and I went to a light and sound show but you are not alouwd to take photos 

I didint like it that much but it was educational.

Agra Train ride.

We decided to catch the train to Agra.  It’s three and a half hours on the train.  First class in India on the train is not the same as first class in NZ.  But they did keep bringing you food and drink.  The seats are like our bus seats but with more room.

I read most of the way.  Mum saw a lot of bare bums by the train tracks as we passed villages.  The train tracks seemed to be the public toilet.

Agra fort

Agra fort was made of red sandstone that had been in the process of being covered with white marble.  I got to feed squirrels which was my highlight.   

But mum and dad loved it because it wasn’t so much a ruin as the Jaipur forts.  They were actively restoring it.  Not like other monuments around that world that aren’t allowed to be touched.  It was huge.  When the English were in India they had used the huge meeting hall for storage of ammunition so we were lucky that they didn’t blow it up.  These two pics are of the area they stored it all.  before that it was used for the emperor to hold court.

The guy who built the Taj Mahal was imprisoned here by his son.  And he died here.

Taj Mahal

I thought the Taj Mahal’s history was very romantic.  An emperor’s (Shah Jahan)  wife died and he loved her so much that he built her the Taj Mahal for her grave.   A monument to their love. It took twenty two years to build.  I think it is the biggest grave I have ever seen.  It was completely made of marble and gem stone.  None of the pretty pictures were painted they were all inlaid gem stones. We saw how they ground the shapes in the pieces and chiseled the marble to fit them.  It takes forever!!  They use little sharp knives and tap into the marble with the knife.  There was a guest house on one side and a temple on the other side.  They were huge.  The only Asymmetrical thing about it was the two fake marble coffins that were put above the real ones so that visitors could see what they looked like because we weren’t allowed down into the actual tomb.  You can only go down there three times a year on a special religious day.

The four towers around the Taj lean out slightly so that if they fell they would not fall on the tomb.  The whole thing is built on water tanks.  So the water would absorb shock if anything happened like an earthquake and the building would stay standing.  It was built by Persians that the emperor brought over.

Gateway hotel fashion show dinner on the roof.

We had dinner on the roof of the hotel for dad’s birthday.  There was a fashion show below us in the hotel grounds.  There was a kid’s song about shoes that the lyrics were totally me!  Cause I used to be called Imelda Marcos cause I always wore every one else’s shoes and I still love shoes.  I love the words but hate the song!!!!  And I bought a pair of peacock shoes at our hotel too!!!!  You have to listen to it
https://youtu.be/GHWUrSsnDYM

These are my shoes:

I also had traditional Henna painting done on my hands.

So that was our birthday weekend for dad.  We went to the baby taj and a live bollywood show about the Taj love story the real taj Mahal the Agra fort and rooftop dining with a fashion show on below for shoes and then the All Blacks won the world cup.  Dad's best birthday ever.

My hotel.

Visit to Amber palace.

Today I went to Amer Palace.  This was the original palace of the Maharajah and his twelve wives.

Before we got there we stopped for some photos and a snake charmer gave me a fright when he sat down next to us and got out his snake.

To get to the palace we rode an elephant up the long path.

When we got off the elephant  we had a guide who was the grandson of one of the last soldiers to live there.
The two forts that we have already been to were protecting this palace and the wall over the hills.  When we got off the elephant we went into what used to be the stables and then went to a look out after that.  This is the palace the abandoned because of water shortage.
There is a very beautiful mirror palace that the maharajah built for his wives,  He shipped in the glass from belgium and bought over some Persian people who built it.  You can see their persian carpet designs in the walls and ceilings.  They crushed gem stones and used them in a gum paste as paint.  So the paintings shimmer and have never been retouched. The  Maharajah wanted his wives to always be able to see stars.  The would sit with candles under the mirror and glass and see thousands of tiny flame reflections like stars.

Then dad and me walked the secret path from the palace up the hill to the fort.  This was an escape route incase the palace got attacked.  Everyone could get up the hill to safety in the forts.

Back to Jai Mahal Palace.

I havent really said much about where we are staying. Heres a picture.

It has a pool, gym, tennis court - everything.  The staff here are amazing.  They know what I like to drink and eat and my name.

We had a day in the office away from the hotel where dad works with his group. I spent the morning in Prya's office reading my book and she wants to bake me a cake.  It's her hobby.  Prya is the general manager.
Then we had lunch and I ate some Indian food that wasnt spicey and there were big blocks of cheese in it.
Then after lunch me and prya didnt feel it but everyone else felt the earthquake.  Indians dont know how to handle an earhtquake!  They just ran out through all the glass doors.  You are meant to sit under the desk and wait before you run out.  But everyone was running out through the glass offices to the street where the power lines were.
The earthquake hit in Afghanistan and thats all of New Zealand away and we were on the very edge and it was huge for us.  When we went backk in the building I went and read my book.

This was in the papers:

More than 260 people have died, mostly in Pakistan, after a magnitude-7.5 earthquake hit north-eastern Afghanistan.

Tremors from the quake were also felt in northern India and Tajikistan.

At least 12 of the victims were Afghan schoolgirls killed in a crush as they tried to get out of their building.

The earthquake was centred in the mountainous Hindu Kush region, 76km (45 miles) south of Faizabad, the US Geological Survey reported.

The death toll is set to rise as the most severely affected areas are very remote and communications have been cut off.

After we got back to the hotel I had my palm read. Apparently this is my life:

Independant, optimistic good communicator adventurous romantic swimmer clever emotional professional.  Would be good in marketing sales banking it tradeand after 33 everything will be successfull.  Apparently i will only have one boyfriend and he will be the one!   (Mum says He is saying that because he is indian and that is the way for indian women.  She thinks I will have 20).

Tiger Safari

It was an early start today so we could go in the jeep and see the Tigers. Because the best time to see them is first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon or early evening.  

There are zones 1 to 13 and they randomly select the zones you get to go into. We got zone 6. It was a bumpy ride to get to the place where we got our guide.The reserve is so huge that it can be up to an hours drive between entrance gates to get in.

You have to sign a piece of paper saying that is anything happens to you its not their fault.

Then when we got through a pink gate our guide instantly saw tiger foot prints that I just thought were puppy paw prints.  They were really fresh and the guide got really excited.

We followed it to an area that looks like a swamp, but unluckily for us we didn’t get to see it.  But we knew it was there because a deer was saying it was.  It was probably because everyone else knew it was there and there were big big trucks without roofs there.  And the people were making too much noise so the tiger wouldn’t show.

We hired a private jeep so we could get a chance to see the tigers.  But no one saw a tiger today.  There are fifty five tigers in the park cause it cant support any more.

We saw three different types of deer.  Sambal deer, spotted deer and Indian deer.

We also saw monkeys.

We saw a spotted owl.

When we stopped for the toilets one Indian said could I have a photo with you and then other people started to come and ask.  But appearently when they say one photo they mean a thousand photos.  I felt famous.

The town we had to drive through to get to zone six  has a lot of camels.  Everyone thinks of camels as pains in the arse because they spit but when you are there with them they have their head held high and they look like they think they are better than us.

The cows in India are very holy.  In fact on our drive to the reserve there was a very holy cow that was hitchhiking a ride.   It was actually in the trailer being driven.  They sit in the middle of the road and walk accros knowing they wont get hit cause they are holy cows.  And some sleep in the middle of the road.

We went back to the hotel and then went on our next safari in the afternoon.

The next safari was a really long drive and was bumpy and windy.  We were driving to zone 8.  The road went through a village.  We saw more cows.  There were a lot of women walking to get water and there was a pump that they were using to get the water.  They were also doing washing around the pump.

We got to the gate of zone 8 and got our guide.  We drove through and there were heaps of monkeys and deer at a water hole.  And I think there should have been a tiger there.

This landscape was really different to the morning one.  It was dryer and had trees that weren’t so green and was a lot bumpier and steeper.  We went right up the top of a mountain and by the time we reached the top we realized how high we were when we looked over.

There were animals everywhere because they tigers don’t hunt at this time of day.  It was about three in the afternoon.  But our safari went to six oclock and it was dark when we finished.  I thought the view was spectacular.  There were less people in this zone and and there were no big trucks.  The only access was for the jeeps.

Today we drove from Jai Mahal Palace to The Tiger Den Resort in Ranthambhour.

We are at Ranthambour because it is a four hundred square kilometer UNFENCED Tiger reserve.  So yes the tigers could just walk out into the streets but they don’t.

Tigers are an endangered species and so we are going to help them.  The town of Ranthambhour exists so tourists can come and see the tigers in the reserve.  In their natural habitat.  This has made the tigers special to the locals. The idea is they can make money off the tigers and don’t have to put money into the tigers.  Because they have three types of deer on the reserve to eat.  And the people don’t have to help the deer.

It took us three hours to drive here.  We all played eye spy on the way and struggled to find different things to see cause it was all the same.   What we did see was cows pashmina goats, camels, cows haystacks and pimped tractors with big speakers on them.  And it was de ja vue cause it all just repeated.

I saw pashmina goats and we bought some pashminas.  Pashminas are made from goat wool.  They are fluffy looking.