Back from the Motherland

So I'm back from India and let me just say it blew my mind. I think everyone, at least once in their lifetime needs to visit India. The people, food, sites, culture, music and of course shopping. I fell in love with the country.

We left Kabul and flew directly to Delhi where we spent the afternoon and part of the next day. We stayed at a small hotel near the train station, nothing really fancy. Think bucket baths! The boys were insistent over the fact that we were going to "be local" as much as possible.

We had a chance to visit the Red Fort, a few mosques, several popular Bazaars and take in a huge part of the city on foot, rickshaw, subway and train. We ended up exploring some unique areas of the city where probably few if any tourists go. There was loads of butter chicken, masala chais, chicken tikha, bhel puri, naan, pakoras to keep us constantly stuffed for five days.

We took the train over to Agra on Wednesday evening which proved to be an interesting experience. We thought we'd deviate a little from "doing it local" and upgrade to a car with air conditioning. It was a good thing we did. After spending over an hour at the train station waiting, and then an extra hour on our train we were happy with the decision.

We spent the next day taking in everything in Agra. By far the highlight was being at the Taj Mahal during sunrise. We were within the first twenty people in. It is probably the most phenomenal structure I've seen in my entire life. We got some great photos. This local guy took a ton of pictures of us on our digital cameras. We also visited the Agra Fort and then spent the rest of the day in local bazaars, just people watching. There was a national holiday while we were in Agra, so we ended up walking into a couple of parades, people dancing in the streets, lots of music and just people, people, people, everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!

We headed back to Delhi on Thursday night and had a quiet dinner. The next couple days were spent shopping (of course!) and visiting some local tourist sites in Delhi - India Gate and Chantar Mantar. We also got a chance to check out the Delhi nightlife and checked out 3 of the most popular nightclubs, the most insane being Fashion Bar, which is hosted by Fashion TV. It made you forget you were India; it made you feel like you were partying somewhere else.

We arrived back in Kabul on Sunday and I'm having serious India withdrawal. In just five days I fell in love with all that is and was India. The good news is that I'm back in Kabul for another 7 days and then I'm going back!!!!! I leave for Delhi next Wednesday and will be spending time again in Delhi, Agra, Fatepur Sikri and Calcutta of course. The next 5 working days are going to be very tough.