My mother is down with a cold and refuses to eat anything other than Nan. My stomach likes to remind me once in a while that I am not meant to eat Indian food everyday by gently weeping and then screeching once in a while. My father surprisingly eats everything, complains that he might get heartburn but is actually completely fine. I lands on me that despite his tendency to forget, lose and ask the same questions 8 times--he is probably the most well suited to be the international business man that he is. Despite this, we are moving along, sleeping where we can and are about to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow.
Our schedule has been insane and getting access to fast or any internet access has been hard the last few days due to our schedule. I can't get photos and videos to load as I am rarely in one place for more than 30 minutes and nothing loads fast enough. In the last three days we have gone from Delhi to Jaipur to look at the Amber Fort, Palace of the Winds and The observatory where ancient Indian maharaja built and entire park to calculate everything from time, stars, cosmic directions and horoscope predictions using nothing but geometry, math, sunlight and really cool looking architecture. After decimating a handicrafts store, Mughal jewelry& fine art store, we hopped into a car and head out to Ranthambore National park.
The fort at Ranthambore houses the Maharaja's former hunting grounds that covers an entire area that seems to be the size of Yosemite. 35 (maybe 15) Royal Bengal Tigers roam around the jungle supporting the local economy of thousands of people in the area as tourists from India and international areas mount jeeps and long range lenses trying to capture glimpses of the tigers.
The chance to see tigers is about 60%, we were in the unlucky 40%. Waking up at 6:30am, we climbed aboard open air jeeps and drove through very chilly forest and watched wild birds, monkeys, deer, antelope & a mangoose or two wander around a jungle that looks like it came from the pages of the jungle book. Ruins of the old Ranthambore fort looms high above a cliff and pagodas, tombs and massive stone gates dot the landscape and we sat. Waiting. For 30 minutes at a time. Staring in the foreground, background, under the brush, into the bushes, into the trees hoping to see the tigers from our open top jeeps. I now have 200 pictures of everything but. After two days, we hopped aboard another car on our way towards to Agra.
Agra is infamous for having some pretty terrible slums. After driving through many backroads from Jaipur to Ranthambore and Ranthambore to Agra we had gotten used to watching the changing landscape. When we arrived into the city center of Agra, it looked like every little hamlet we had visited had clumped five times on top of each other. A city supported by tourists, the Mughal empire's gloss is long gone and it looks chaotic and black in areas with random monkeys climbing up and down fences. I predict there will be trouble with them monkeys.
Security in Agra is very tight. A car accident has higher possibilities in India and must say, spending the last week not reading the news has been refreshing. Ignorance really is bliss. Hope our stomachs settle soon.
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