Over the Hindu festival of Dashain in Nepal everything shuts down as the equivilant of the Christmas holidays are upon us. With the office also closed we took the opportunity to spend a few days in neighbouring India playing tourist at some of its many monuments and sights.
So less than two hours after leaving Nepal we found ourselves in Delhi. Living in Kathmandu we thought we would be prepared for the chaos that is the capital, and we probably were more so than if we had come from the UK, but it was still an assault on the senses. In comparison, Kathmandu now appears calm, clean and almost traffic free at times! Not something we thought we’d find ourselves saying!
But that aside our few days in the capital afforded us the chance to see some of the incredible heritage sights and monuments it has to offer. For us two days was enough but the guide books could have you there for weeks seeing more and more of what is on offer!
So at 4:30am the next morning we headed off to Agra, a town most famous as the home of the Taj Mahal. By contrast Agra is calmer and a lot more relaxed than Delhi. Our hotel was within the environmental zone that surrounds the Taj, providing a lovely haven from the bustle of the street life. Agra too had some beautiful sights, but the Taj Mahal as expected stole the show and having viewed it at sunset from across the river the day before we enjoyed a sunrise walk around its grounds and exploring the tomb itself before the crowds got too big or the sun got too hot. You have to take your shoes off and walk around on the tiled floor barefoot (unless you come with a swanky tour that is well prepared enough to give you shoe coverings, which we did not!) so as the sun gets higher in the sky the floor gets hotter underfoot!
One of the oddest things about being in India was that although Hindi is not dissimilar to Nepali with some words shared, Nepali is not readily understood in this area of India. So whilst many aspects of the way things operated were very Nepali we found ourselves struggling to speak English in a context that seemed so much more familiar to the Nepali side of our brains!
It was great to have a few days out, but we were very glad to return to what we now think of as the calm of Kathmandu and home.
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