Tuesday, April 29, 2003
The City of Agra is known as the City of Love. This is where Shah Jahan (whose name translates to Emperor of the Universe) built the Taj Mahal for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (sometimes pronounced by our tour guide as Mehel)- whose name, in turn, translates to "ornament of the palace."
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06:20 PM GMT+8
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At 10:45am, we arrived at Sikandra (also part of Agra), where we have Akbar's Tomb. Akbar was the 3rd king of the Mughal Empire or Dynasty and was considered the greatest of all kings.
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12:55 PM GMT+8
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We left the Oberoi Hotel at 6am and made our way to Agra, the place where the Taj Mahal is located. Between 7:45-8:45am, we stopped at the Rajasthan Motel for breakfast where I found out that a chicken sandwich meant just pieces of boiled chicken put in between two pieces of toast. Never mind - the colorful flowers around the place and the architecture - more than made up for the sandwich.
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12:46 PM GMT+8
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Belated belated Happy Easter everyone! Sorry for that long break. Nope, wasn't out on a trip - I guess I had such a big hang-over from the Holy Week break that all I came up with when I attempted to write was a big fat egg...And now, on with the India series.
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12:32 PM GMT+8
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Tuesday, April 15, 2003
We temporarily interrupt the India series to give way to Holy Week. As the hubby has written, we did go to a recollection at the Meralco Theater last Palm Sunday. One of the questions posed then was: "Naka-ilang semana santa ka na?"
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12:25 PM GMT+8
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Friday, April 11, 2003
Starting today, I shall be listing places that a tourist may want to see in India. Read on:
GANDHI SMRITI
This is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi and is the place where he spent his last 144 days before he was killed by an assassin on January 30, 1948. There's some sort of library/book store filled with books that Gandhi read. There are glimpses from Gandhi's life shown in mini-figures. Around the place, we read quotations from people like Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore re what they had to say about Gandhi. There are some pretty nice flowers in the garden and there's the pathway (complete with footprints) which Gandhi took to the prayer ground on the day that he died.
" I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills." - I suppose Bush or Saddam didn't read much of Gandhi, huh?
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06:23 PM GMT+8
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Thursday, April 10, 2003
"Liberating. Making great things possible. It's the only one that lets you call and text. Help! M lost hir in Hong Kong." These are some of the lines used to promote the prepaid international roaming service of a leading telecom company here in the Philippines.
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05:24 PM GMT+8
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Wednesday, April 9, 2003
I still don't know much about Indian food. During our one-week stay in India, it was quite hard to get people to explain the type of food we were eating, what it was called, etc. At one point, someone even answered my question by saying: "Just try it. You'll like it."
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05:42 PM GMT+8
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Friday, April 4, 2003
As you go around sightseeing in India, you'll notice so many hawkers milling about. It's a good thing our guide warned us and gave us tips on how to deal with them.
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04:19 PM GMT+8
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Thursday, April 3, 2003
Pinoys who love bargains and haggling (is this a redundant phrase or what?), listen up. These are the markets to go to when in New Delhi. You can ask your taxi driver or hotel personnel for directions. Don't be discouraged if you hear that the goods there are not of high quality. They're fine. Just be ready to do some searching and haggling.
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12:01 PM GMT+8
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On one of the tours that we went on, our tour guide mentioned three things that you should get when in India:
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11:43 AM GMT+8
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One of the things we discovered during our trip is that most shops are closed on Sundays. This can be quite a surprise to Filipinos in particular as "malling" is a favorite weekend activity.
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11:30 AM GMT+8
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Wednesday, April 2, 2003
Getting a hotel car from The Oberoi would cost us 450 rupees an hour and we would have to book the car for a minimum of two hours. That's 900 rupees (or roughly a little over P1,000) for a measly two hours.
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12:12 PM GMT+8
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Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Catholics are a minority in India so we thought it best to ask about Sunday mass schedules and the location of the church early enough. As we flew in at about 2am, Sunday morning, it was prudent to find out the schedules beforehand so we could plan our day accordingly.
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11:39 AM GMT+8
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