We arrived in Delhi, thankful to have flown down versus driven and eager to explore a city. We jumped on the metro (surprisingly clean for India) and walked through a couple bazaars and parks. For Oliver's birthday we were surprised with a cake by the owners of our bed and breakfast. Oliver had only two bites and was crazy-high on sugar, running around the table and turning over plates looking for more. Andy's dad, Chuck, joined us on Christmas eve. We took Oliver to the zoo because it was closed on his birthday. We rode in a rickshaw to and from the zoo and though Andy and I were white-knuckled, sucking in our breath, Chuck was....zzzzzzzzzz.....sound asleep. Been there. He was pretty upside down from jet lag.
Oliver dazzled us with a new word every day in Delhi; "dog", "wow", "down", "me"...he is up to about 15 words. It is so much fun to chat with him. His favorite word is still "pretty".
He said it non-stop when we went to a mall after the zoo to see the Christmas display. The huge tree was "pretty!" The lights strung along the courtyard, "pretty!" the Indian band alternating between Backstreet Boys and Christmas carols, "pretty!" Had we been in Chicago for Christmas and you asked me the last place I would want to be, I would have answered "a mall." No place would be more maddening. The crowds, pushing, the noise and horrible lighting. But for some reason I found this mall...comforting. The lights were exactly what I needed to see, the carols exactly what I wanted to hear. Oliver had a great time and Andy was able to get a decent pizza for dinner, a true Christmas miracle.
We hired a driver to take us to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We strapped Oliver into his American car seat that Chuck kindly brought Over for us and we were off! Dodging water buffalo, elephants and pedestrians we wound our way towards an amazing piece of architecture. But first, we had to check in to our hotel. You know that scene in "Coming to America" when Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall are checking into their hotel and the manager says to them, "You are going to love this place, it's a real shit hole"? Well, that was this hotel. The funny part is, had Andy and I just arrived in India we would have taken one look at the room with white walls and fluorescent lighting, no shower curtain just a shower head above the toilet and the eery dripping sound and said "uh uh, nope, we are NOT staying here!" we would have spun around and left. But because we have lived here five months we took one look at the clean floors and the mold-free walls and said "this place is great!" we hoped Chuck would view the place as an adventure. We all agreed to hold off on showering until the next hotel and took in the Taj from every roof top we could that night. In the morning we bought our tickets (we got to pay Indian citizen prices by showing our work visas!) and walked through the gates. Even though I have seen the Taj in hundreds of pictures, it still took my breath away. Oliver declared it "pretty!" and so did we. Guides made their groups pose and pretend to pinch the top. Lots of families were also told to jump. "1,2,3, jump!" guides exclaimed. We agreed to no jumps, no pinches. We just walked and gazed upwards. Then we got the hell out of Agra, the town itself, "a real shithole."
We found our driver and he took us to Bharatpur, home of India's largest bird sanctuary. Andy and Chuck are birding there now, Oliver and I will join up post nap. What I thought would be a nice day of exercise, me and Oliver trolling around, is not going to happen. There were tigers spotted so we will drive up to the visitors center, get rickshawed around from there. So I am hanging out in our hotel, nicer than the one in Agra but no hot water and no working toilet, still fantastic by India standards.
Tomorrow we drive to Jaipur and work our way closer to the desert. I am excited; keeping my expectations low and my fingers crossed for hot water.
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