Magical and mysterious Agra

It looks like I'm doing well,
but those are his. haha.

Let me start by saying our hotel in Agra is a five star (by Indian standards). We loved it. While eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant, a chef handed us a plate of Jalebis, an Indian breakfast dessert. It is a lot like funnel cake. They make it by pouring dough into hot oil in little round circles, then dipping the dough into extremely sweet sugar and honey syrup. Know how I know? The chef offered to take us into the kitchen and watch/help him make some! It was a ton of fun. By the way, we've been making videos, but the internet connection here isn't good enough to upload them. Needless to say, in a while I will be able to post facebook links to them, one of which will be a video of this experience. :) After watching/helping them, we were able to eat some fresh. They are too sweet to eat more than one or two, but YUM!

We're sitting on the center
of the parcheesi board!

After breakfast, Guddu picked us up and took us to Fatehpur Sikri, the palaces of Akbar and his three wives and concubines. It's about an hour's drive from Agra, and it was fun to see outside the city a little. This was my favorite part of our trip to Agra. Obviously the Taj Mahal was incredible, but this was an unexpected wonder. Akbar married three wives (Muslim's are allowed to marry four, as long as they treat them equally). One of this wives was Muslim, one was Hindu, and one was Christian. Instead of converting them as he was supposed to do according to Muslim law, he let them all remain faithful to their beliefs in an act of political savvy. He was trying to appease these three groups of people under his reign. Each wife was given a separate palace. The Muslim wife had the smallest, but most intricately carved and decorated room (with mirrored walls and diamond flowers on the wall). The Christian wife also had a small palace, but with four rooms instead of one. Hers was my favorite and was in the shape of a cross, much like a cathedral. The Hindu wife had a huge palace, with a large courtyard and a summer and winter house and a temple. Another interesting part of Fatehpur Sikri is the life-sized parcheesi board. The king and queen (whichever, who knows haha) would sit in the middle, while beautiful women would dance as their pieces. I loved this place because it reminded me of Arabian Nights. It's so magical and different than anything in western culture. Great... now I have that song in my head.

We did a little shopping, had lunch (again, yum), and went back to the hotel to rest in the AC and to get our bags. After about an hour of resting, Guddu took us to the train station and we headed back to New Delhi. It's Saturday morning now, and we're about to head out for another day's adventures. More to come!