When I say Marco - you say Polo.

When we arrived in Delhi, everything looked smoky and smelled like fire. We arrived at our hostel and ordered in dinner. Thalis all around please. Then we went to sleep because we only had two hours to sleep. We were all hepped up about going to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise which meant leaving our hostel at 3 am to get to Agra at 6 am. I need you all to know that it is cold in India. Very cold. Winter cold. Surprisingly, the two hours of sleep was refreshing, and we all were up and ready to go at 3 am to meet our driver Kumar and make the 3-4 hour drive to Agra.

The drive was completely surreal, as a huge fog had descended on Delhi the night before, and figures and cars were shrouded in a thick mist. Luckily our driver was expert and got us safely to the gates of the Taj about 15 minutes before sunrise. It's hard to describe the Taj in words. It's truly magnificent. Of course we couldn't see it through the dense fog at first from the main gate. But it revealed itself to us when we got closer, more so as the fog burned off throughout the morning. Once again, I can't explain enough how cold it was. We were freezing, huddling under the pink monster for any little extra bit of warmth we could. After many photo ops like the one below, we bid the Taj ado for a warming meal in a near by restaurant. We had iddlee, dosai, tea and some sort of breakfast dish - the name escapes me,but Sootch will know- that was a solid form of cream o' wheat/ polenta with fresh herbs and some vegetables(?) inside. Quite tasty! The ladies felt more warming clothes were in order so we were whisked away shopping for warming wraps where we me Raj by the Taj - no joke. We entered that beautiful pantomime of buyer and seller. He knew he had us when he welcome us with tea. The girls did end up with beautifully embroidered wraps which not only look great but "would cook an egg in 72 hours if you left it wrapped up inside."

The adventure didn't end there but unfortunately this post will. We've just finished breakfast at the hotel and we're packing up for our nighttrain to Jodhpur. More to come soon.

Maniacs!