I got up about 4am, Ash about an hour later, and we went out for a walk about 5:30.

The hotel is close to their version of the national mall we have in DC.

This photo shows congressional buildings at the bottom, India Gate at the top which is where we were headed.

It was just before 6am, the sun still coming up.

Completed in 1931, India Gate is a war memorial inscribed with the names of 82,000 who lost their lives in wars, primarily World War I. This site serves as a significant historical place for the country and protests and demonstrations are held here.

The statue behind it is of Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian anti-colonial nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians. But then later was allies with Germany and Japan in WW2 so there’s that. He died in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945 (then occupied by Japan). Indian officials decided to ignore all that an honor him for his work against the British authority in India.

We made it back for breakfast when it opened at 6:30am. It is quite the spread.

This is a dosa, something Ash was very excited for me to try. It is a thin, crispy pancake made from rice and lentil flour. This was a masala dosa, filled with spicy potatoes. And a variety of dips to go with it.

Our Uber driver was early so we finished up and went up to our room to change and pack a few things for our day trip.

We made one stop about halfway into our 4 hour drive to Agra. This rest stop was like a food court.

We opted for the coffee and tea options. Oh and some butter cookies because why not?

Driving in Agra, population about 2.5million, was a more typical India experience than the “posh” area we are staying in. Scooters, tuk-tuks, bicycles, cars and trucks of all sizes competing for small roads with no traffic signs or lights. Ash calls it organized chaos and that’s a good description. I tried to get some visuals but it’s hard to do from a moving vehicle so you’ll just have to trust me 😎

Why Agra? It is home to 3 UNESCO sites, the most famous being the Taj Mahal, one of the 7 Wonders of the World. (I’ve now just got 2 to go!)

The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, as a memorial to his 3rd but most beloved wife, Mumtaj Mahal. They were married for 19 years and she bore 14 children, although 8 of them died soon after childbirth. She died just 3 years after he become emperor, killing off his older brothers to get there.

It took 22 years to build, completed in 1653. Soon after, his son, who also killed his older brothers, took over the throne in a bloody coup. He jailed his father in the fort across the river, which is also a UNESCO site. (We will come back to that some other time!)

So that’s the gist. Are you ready? Because I wasn’t.

The guy to Ash’s left is Shakir, our guide. For the sake of brevity, I will skip the complicated logistics that it took to acquire him. We agreed that we definitely would not have been able to navigate what we had to navigate to get in without him. And I will leave it at that. In this photo, we are merely walking down the street to the security entrance.

At this point, we are past security and heading towards the main entrance.

He pulled us to the side into a shady spot to give us some of the history. That’s a side view of the main entrance. Oh, and it was about 93°. 

The front view of the main entrance. See the arched doorway in the center? That will be predominant in the next photo.

Shakir kept asking for my phone so that he could take photos for me, which I appreciated in the end. He did a really nice job. The next handful of photos are all ones he took. 

Framed underneath that arch. He walked ahead of us to take this so I didn’t really appreciate it until later. Plus there were so many people it was hard to see anything.

The next view was the one that really got me.

Coming out from under the archway, this is what you see. For the first time maybe, I understood the word breathtaking. I literally gasped, and was so overcome with emotion I started crying. It is difficult to describe how spectacular this is. The scale first of all. See how tiny those people are on the raised foundation?What the photo also doesn’t capture are the textures that are so visible even from this distance, and the level of detail that a photo just can’t pick up from here. But it’s visible to the naked eye, even at this distance. (If you want to try, click on the photo then save it to your phone or computer, then open it and zoom in.)

I look awful because I was crying.

Same. Ash is happy that I’m so moved. He of course has been here before.

I am starting to recover. We are in long pants and long sleeves because that’s what you wear to a mausoleum, even though it’s 93°. And in general, this is what the men here wear. The only time I have seen men in shorts is on the mall this morning when they were running.

A warning sign about the monkeys. We didn’t see any here, but we did see some on our walk this morning in Delhi. 

I did not realize we would get to go inside. Photos of course are not allowed. I was trying to capture some of the details and it’s really difficult.

The main material is marble, most of it Indian, some of it Italian. All of it carved very intricately. This is a small example.

This is all precious and semi precious stones inlayed into the marble.

Each of the four sides are identical, with one of these towers in each of the four corners. I never realized it was built on a river. This is Ash doing his “try to touch the top” thing which of course is not gonna work at this angle.

This is the garden looking back at the main entrance.

Our path back to where the Uber driver was parked, with every shop trying to sell us something as we walked by. 

We were on the road again by about 12:30 PM. That’s the driver in the red cap. Ash had him stop here to have me sample some sweets that he likes.

So of course, we bought a couple of boxes.

We got back to the hotel about 4:20. we went straight to the lounge for a bite to eat since we did not have any lunch other than a couple of granola bars that we had snagged from the breakfast buffet this morning. But we didn’t eat too much, because we are leaving about 6:15pm for dinner.

———-

It is 9:10pm and we are back from dinner. We went to Indian Accent. Ash has been talking to me about this place for years so I’m glad I finally got to try it. He has been to this one a handful of times and the one in NYC once. The one here is currently ranked 5th best restaurant in India, although has been #1 several times before. It’s also currently on the 50 best restaurants in the world list.

How’s that for a buildup?

It’s the restaurant attached to The Lodhi Hotel, a luxury brand a few miles away.

These places always start with an amuse bouche. (Always makes me think of Chandler!) This was blue cheese baked inside a dough.

We went with the tasting menu with a couple of changes. I took this mostly so I would remember what all was in the photos! That price by the way translates to about $85 a head after taxes and tip. Which is less than half what a meal like this would cost back home.

Potato chaat: shredded potato rolled into a ball then deep fried. I don’t remember what the sauce was but it was very good. The red is watermelon.

Scallop with an xo sauce, the white moon is steamed rice cake, with a crispy something I don’t remember on top. This was one of Ash’s favorite items tonight.

This was essentially a Mexican dish, but I loved it. Chicken, avocado, lettuce, in a tortilla like item. They even said to eat it like a taco. So we did. 

Sorbet on a stick as a palette cleanser.

For the main course, I had the pork belly which was incredibly meaty as these things go. It was served in a sauce that reminded me of a sloppy Joe, and I mean that  in the best way. 

Ash had chicken roulade in a brown onion sauce and said it was great.

Ash ordered this off the à la carte menu. We had a different version of this at Le Meridien in Paro. A potato dumpling in a five spice squash curry over quinoa. Really nice.

This was probably my favorite. A lot going on. From the left around: duck in a sort of pastry; black and yellow daal; yogurt with a crispy mint flour topping; duck biryani (like a rice patty). I ate the yogurt with the duck pastry. Incredible. And so full after this. But it kept coming.

Dessert #1: crispy ball filled with cheesecake on a mango sauce. Yummy.

Dessert #2: a very dense chocolate cake over a pool of basundi which is primarily condensed milk. No calories in this (ha!). I couldn’t finish mine.

Dessert #3: an extra provided we think because of the number of times Ash has been here. He had two different conversations with the head chef. At any rate, this is a meringue foam seasoned with saffron. Thankfully very light.

I don’t know what they call this course, but these meals often end with this mix of sweet and savory snacky things. The only item we liked was top right which was a candied mango. So I’m not even gonna talk about the other three. They were all savory and way too over the top for us. Which is a lot if you are Ash.

What a day. Ash is already asleep and I will be shortly. We have two full days left in Delhi before we head home on a redeye flight Thursday night. They are largely unscripted so we will see what we come up with.