India's Golden Triangle

For some reason, I always get confused between India's Golden Triangle tour and Iceland's Golden Circle (even as I was writing this, I wrote 'India's Golden Circle' - see what I mean??)...both are fantastic, but this post will (hopefully) just focus on the former: India's Golden TRIANGLE.

The Golden Triangle refers to the three popular tourist cities of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. You can comfortably cover all three in 5 days as we did (we had about 5-6 hours of travelling between each point of the triangle) but I can imagine that having a bit longer gives you a chance to go beyond the obvious - the Taj Mahal, the Amber Fort, the Palace of the Winds, and so on.

So here's what we did during our whistle-stop tour of the Golden Triangle, and how we did it.

First of all, we didn't do it alone - we had the help of tour company Travel Fair India. We had one driver who stayed with us for all 5 days, taking us from our hotel to monuments and from city to city. We then had a different 'city guide' who guided us through each monument.

There were pros and cons to this approach, but it really depends on the type of traveller you are!

The Pros:

-Not having to worry about transport and accommodation, as this was all arranged.

-Being able to tailor our itinerary to what we wanted to see (up to a point)

-Our absolute legend of a driver and all-round lovely person, Ravi. If you do book with Travel Fair India, I would strongly recommend requesting Ravi because he went above and beyond to make our trip (our honeymoon, actually!) perfect. We were told by one of our tour guides that getting to the Taj Mahal for sunset just wasn't going to happen, but Ravi put the pedal to the metal (um, in the safest possible way, of course) and got us there! He also surprised us with a secret monkey encounter, details to follow. What a guy!

-Knowledgeable guides in each city to give us historical background about everything we saw. Our favourite was our Taj Mahal guide, whose enthusiasm was inspiring.

The Cons:

-Not always having the freedom to wander the monuments ourselves. We are fans of taking things at our own pace, so being told what to look at or what not to look at got a little tiring at times.

-One guide in particular kept putting us into situations where we were being touted and at risk of being ripped off - for instance, pressured by attendants inside a mosque to buy outrageously expensive cloth as an offering, when the locals were buying their cloth for a fraction of the price outside the mosque.

My favourite shot from our Taj Mahal visit

THE TOUR!

Delhi

We began our tour with just Ravi, our driver, who took us off-itinerary and surprised us with a fantastic visit to the Akshardam Temple, an absolutely stunning Hindu temple carved in white stone, every inch of it covered in elaborate depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses, and hundreds of elephants. Not many tourists ever visit this place - we were possibly the only non-Indians there during our visit, but it is open for tourists and completely worth the trip!

Photographs are not permitted inside the temple (I wonder if this is what keeps tourists away??) and it was quite refreshing being in a phone-free environment! We had fun being stalked by a group of curious teenagers who would creep up behind us, say "hello" and descend into a giggling fit.

We then met up with our Delhi-based guide, who took us to Qutub Minar, the world's tallest brick-made minaret. It's part of a beautiful complex made up of intricately calligraphied columns, built on the site of a ruined Hindu temple complex. We learned from our guide that, since Islam demands that calligraphy but not images be carved into buildings, at some point images of Hindu figures from the ruins were removed from the complex, and replaced with calligraphy and new Islamic structures. As you walk through it you are seeing Islamic buidings growing out of Hindu ruins!

Patrick at Qutub Minar

We wanted to see the Lotus Temple, but it was closed! We were disappointed, as we had to head to Agra the next day and wouldn't get another chance to see it!

Speaking of Delhi, when we returned there at the end of our trip we wanted to treat ourselves to a bit of luxury, and booked a night at the very English Claridges hotel. A calm oasis from the chaos outside its walls, it unintentionally helped us imagine what India was like during British colonialism - we ate an English afternoon tea (with a pot of chai, though, of course!) in the well-manicured grounds and then retired to our junior suite to find a chocolate cake waiting for us! It was kind of an odd experience being so spoiled as tourists - but sometimes it's just nice to feel a bit special!

Agra

Before we arrived in Agra, we visited Fatehpur Sikri, an entire town built by Emperor Akbar in the 16th century, who had a Muslim wife, and Christian wife and a Hindu wife. The wives' individual living quarters each reflect their different religions - some elaborately decorated, others plain. The whole complex reflects Akbar's emphasis on entertainment and grandiosity, but my favourite place was the mosque, which is still used for prayer today. I loved how the light filtered in from above, as in the photo below.

The mosque at Fatehpur Sikri

As mentioned, our driver Ravi then moved mountains to get us to Agra in time to watch the sun set over the Taj Mahal from a vantage point in the gardens on the other side of the river. Ravi, you rock.

Hazy Taj sunset!

We then returned to the Taj the next day at sunrise (opening time) and got to enjoy half an hour of photo-taking before the crowds really descended. The Taj Mahal is one of the few places that utterly takes your breath away and makes your jaw drop DESPITE having seen so many photographs of it before. I don't care what the haters say, the Taj Mahal really is one of the most romantic places on Earth. This perception was helped, I think, by our Agra guide, who kindly let us get snap-happy while the crowds were thin before sitting us down to tell us the romantic story of why the Taj was built. He then left us alone for another hour or so to explore the complex in more detail at our leisure - now that's our kind of guide!

A classic!

Jaipur

On our way to Jaipur, we were treated to another surprise by Ravi - a close encounter with some curious monkeys in the brush by the side of the road. While other monkey spots are teeming with tourists and the monkeys are, apparently, "nasty", this place had one lone man with a cart full of bananas you could buy for a few rupees. We were the only tourists there.

Monkey encounters en route to Jaipur

In Jaipur our main attraction was the Amber (or Amer) Fort, of course. My favourite areas were:

-Sheesh Mahal, an ornate hall of tiny mirrors covering the floors and ceiling like a mosaic.

-Ganesh Pol, a colourful gate painted in floral designs that was the entrance to the Maharaja's private palace

-The Arched Pavilion, a series of perfectly symmetrical scalloped arches that make for a great photo!

-The view looking down from the main courtyard - see elephants carrying people up the winding path to the fort

There is so much to explore here - set aside a few hours at the least!

Ganesh Pol, Amber Fort

Arched Pavilion, Amber Fort

Elephants at Amber Fort

We also stopped by the Palace of the Winds, or Hawa Mahal, constructed for the women at the Jaipur Palace. It's famous for its rose colour and many, many windows.

Hawa Mahal

Our last stop was the Panna Meena step well. Not only does it look like an Escher painting but it works like one too...its optical-illusion design means it's very difficult to take the same route back up as you took down. To preserve the well, we weren't allowed to descend more than one level into it, but it's still worth visiting!

Panna Meena step well, near Amber Fort

And that's it! A packed, 5-day Golden Circle - I mean Triangle - tour!