Most of day 4 was spent driving from Agra to Jaipur. Normally, I dislike 5 hour drives (or in our case, an 8 hour drive since a group of 14 women tend to want to make a lot of random stops), but the drives in India didn't bother me one bit b/c there was SO much to see! I thoroughly enjoyed looking out the window and watching all of the locals live out their daily lives. Every time I tried to doze off for a few minutes of sleep, someone would yell "hey, look at that!" so I quickly learned that trying to sleep was simply a waste of time :) So with headphones on, music blaring in my ears and a camera in hand, I spent most of the day photographing India from the bus window...
As I've mentioned in a previous post, cows wander all over the streets in India. We were told that though people own the cows, they can't afford to feed them...so they let them roam free during the day to eat trash off the streets then they collect them at night.
Then came our first stop of the day...
A water buffalo pond! Aren't they cute? They look just like Rocket sitting in his little splash pool back in TX ;)
Right outside the pond there were a group of kids that stole our hearts asking for chocolate (instead of money like many of the other kids did). Thankfully, Chris DID have some chocolate to share and Vikram divided it up and handed it out...and wow, the kids just SWARMED him! Vikram actually told us that handing out candy is not always a good thing b/c it causes fights between the kids if there's not enough to go around :(
After the water buffalo stop we got back on the bus and made our way to our second stop of the day...the abandoned city.
The abandoned city (its real name is Fatehpur Sikri) was built in 1571 and stood as the Mughal capital for 14 years. It was abandoned some years later due to lack of water.
Our whole group inside the abandoned city
Then it was time to get back on the bus...which meant more picture opportunities!
Just your average camel parked on the side of the road... ;)
We had to stop the bus for this...quite a common occurence in India!
The most exciting part of the day came when we spotted this off the side of the road...
More sweet kids appeared wanting candy and we just couldn't resist passing some out!
Finally, we made it to Jaipur! Our bus took a little shortcut through what we were told is the largest slum in Jaipur. It was pretty sad, but definitely made more thankful for the things we have as so many other experiences have done to me this year.
Our day came to an end after we enjoyed a great dinner along with a performance of traditional Indian dance, henna and a cooking demonstration. It was hard to believe 4 days had passed so quickly and we only had 4 more left...
Cara and Mindy got in on the dance fun too! Even while pregnant, Cara can still bust a move!
I think I'm already too old for this move...no chance I could have twirled without passing out!
Henna! This thing lasted for 2 weeks...I actually had to scrub it off when I got sick of it. Cool in India? Yes. Cool in Singapore? Not so much.
Spices from our cooking demonstration, yum!
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