It is now Sunday morning, nearing the end of our first week of travel. And my first opportunity to kick back, relax, and post a few words here. Our original plan upon arriving in India was to chill for a day and recover from jetlag (remember, to get here took waking up at 3AM Monday to catch the 5AM flight out of Walla Walla. Then going from Seattle to Vancouver to Tokyo to Delhi, finally landing in Jaipur about 10PM on Wednesday - we didn't make it to bed until after midnight.) Well, that plan of resting for a day got nixed in hurry. Turns out there is a mosque on the Taj Mahal grounds meaning that the whole place shuts down on Fridays, which was the day we planned to go there after our day of rest on Thursday. So after a short and restless night, due to our internal clocks being about 12 hours out of phase, we headed off to Agra early on Thursday. Although on the map it doesn't look that far from Jaipur to Agra, it took more than 5 hours to get there. Visiting the Taj Mahal was worth every second of lost sleep - it is simply indescribably magnificent!
So maybe a little rest on Friday? No no no! The manager at our inn said we MUST see the beautiful city of Jaipur. And again, we had a wonderful day wandering through palaces, forts, and museums - just not much rest.
Saturday morning we are off again, but this time just to catch our flight to Goa. Fairly uneventful, as we all want our flights to be, except for arriving at the airport and discovering a misplaced passport. Holy s..t. But after 5 frantic minutes,which seemed like 2 hours and probably took a year off our lives, it was located!!
About 6:00 yesterday afternoon we arrived at our new (and kind of fancy) digs here in Goa. The only energy we've expended since getting here was to wander the streets enough to find a great place for beers and fresh seafood. And a quick stop at a produce stand and market got us set for breakfast today without having to get dressed or step out of our room.
Other than enjoying yogurt, bananas, and mangos we have done NOTHING but chill and a bit of stuff online. A much needed (and deserved?) rest will continue for a few more hours I hope.