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5.15am our alarms went off! Today we would be visiting one of the most incredible and beautifully designed buildings in the world, the Taj Mahal! I couldn't believe we were actually going to see it, in all its glory! We caught a tuktuk there as we were aware the queues in the morning could be quite bad as it's the best time to go. On arrival in the pitch black, the queue was separated into two lanes, men and women. This was pretty pointless because the tickets didn't specify whether you were male or female and as soon as Matt got to the front, he bought both our tickets. We also got a complementary bottle of water each and some paper shoe covers for once inside the Taj building. After being searched, we made it in for about 7.15am! The grounds were very well kept and clean which was actually a breath of fresh air for us from the manic streets outside.
My words of explanation on here can't begin to describe just how beautiful the Taj Mahal really is. The magnificent ivory-white marble mausoleum was built in 1632 by the Mughal Emperor, Shan Jahan. He built it to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal after she died giving birth to their fourteenth child. The tomb lies at the centre of the Taj Mahal and was described as a final act of his undying love for her. Matt told me I would be lucky if I got a shed... now there's romance for you!
After an early morning at the Taj Mahal, we headed back to the hotel for some breakfast and waited for Khan as we were heading straight to Pushkar this morning. After seeing the Taj Mahal, I was quite keen to take home a piece of white marble so Khan took us back to the Marble factory we went to the day before. I bought a gorgeous tea light holder in white marble with a turquoise stone flower on the top for 1000 rupees after bartering the owner down considerably. I checked with Khan that it was a good price before buying and he said it was ok. I was really very happy with my little purchase.
Then we set off on our 7 hour drive to Pushkar. We stopped of at a number of little services on route which sold lots of products and confectionary that we have at home like Pringles and Mcvities biscuits but they were very expensive, more so than at home so we passed on those. There aren't many things in India that remind us of home at all, Dominos and McDonald's are the only main things we've seen and they are pretty much only in the big cities. I've only seen one Starbucks here and they are usually everywhere!
We arrived in Pushkar absolutely knackered from all the travelling but Khan had other ideas. He had booked us in for a 2 hour camel ride for the sunset in Pushkar desert. After a quick freshen up at our hotel, The New Park Hotel, which was very calm and tranquil, we drove out to the desert. Matt and I each had our own camel and after a fairly awkward attempt to mount our camels (both equally hilarious), off we went. An interesting fact about camels, they can run up to 25-30 miles an hour which I did not expect. We didn't hit these speeds thank god, but the ride to the sand dunes was amazing. The further out into the desert we got, the calmer it became. It was one of the only times so far on the trip I felt completely relaxed. The sun was setting just in front of us which was amazing to see.
After 30 minutes or so of camel back riding, we came to the sand dunes. There were lots of people there but the main attraction was the Jeep driving by clearly fairly wealthy Indians. Everyone was going mad for it! After 30-45 minutes stop here, we headed back via camel. The sun was almost set behind us as we left. We arrived back at the main strip, and Modi (my little 13 year old guide) took us into the Pushkar fair. There was lots to see there but in all honesty, I was glad we were up high on the camel as the hustle and bustle below looked a tad overwhelming. We waded through the crowds of people and the traffic which just parted like the Red Sea for us. I felt like the Queen, and occasionally found myself waving to the people below taking photos.
The owner of the camel company gave us a lift back to the hotel in his Jeep, Matts always wanted one so he loved this! We saw a little Italian restaurant on route back and asked to be dropped off there. The menu of the Italian didn't look so good so after checking out a few of the menus along that street, we found an awesome little place called 'Funky Monkey'. It's the first place we've come to that had a real traveller vibe to it with cool lighting and seating areas. They also had a fire stone pizza oven which was a real novelty so we both had our own pizzas followed by a Nutella pancake with a snickers bar inside! Words cannot describe the sheer pleasure I experienced! Bloody lovely! We had checked before ordering but the restaurant didn't accept card and we had no cash still as the ATMs were not working and the banks were too busy to get in. Luckily the restaurant owner was possibly the most chilled out man I've ever met and told us to order whatever we wanted and just to pay when we had the money! Now usually I'd think 'wow, what a nice guy!', But considering what we've already experienced, I was sceptical about his chilled attitude. Nevertheless, we took full advantage and ordered two courses each!
After a quick walk in the dark back to our hotel, we had the most amazing 'hot' shower and hit the sack. The bed was the softest yet! I couldn't wait to see what breakfast had to offer!
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