Spring Break 2017 - Trip to India Part II - Agra Fort

On our second day in India we started off by going to the Raj Ghat - the area in a park where Gandhi was cremated.  It is in an area where many other leaders and VIPs were cremated and it has been turned into a beautiful park and memorial.  It was another area that we really enjoyed.  It was pretty peaceful (we were there early in the morning and so we beat a lot of the tourist traffic), and there were lots of beautiful flowers and plants in the gardens.  We spent about an hour looking around and then headed out of town.  We didn't go see the Red Fort in Delhi because we had been told that it was very similar to the one in Agra, and that was on our agenda for later in the day.

Waiting at our hotel for our driver to pick us up to go to Agra.

The streets of Delhi

Also the streets of Delhi.

We've seen a lot of these on the roads.

And of course, tuk-tuks.

This was a little flea market right along the side of the road. From what we could see, they were mostly selling shoes there.

Raj Ghat park which translates as King's Bank (meaning river bank). Just beautiful!

In our exploration of the park we came to this point where we had to take of our shoes if we wanted to go any further.

All kids but Sophie decided to check it out. The adults stayed with the shoes, just in case.

Here they are, off to explore. When they came back they reported that there were more flower beds but nothing else. Of course they didn't think to read the signs that were everywhere.

When the kids came back, this woman-guard who made sure everybody took off their shoes before proceeding on their walk in this area came up to them. For a moment we thought they were in trouble. It turned out that she wanted to take a picture of them. This was our first of many such experiences while we were in India. Wherever we went, somebody always wanted to take a picture of us.

Beautiful park!

Entrance to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial. The twins were learning about him in their History of the World this year, so it was neat to see the place of his grave.

We didn't go down to get closer to his grave because one had to take off the shoes again but we had a very good view from the top of the wall.

Looking good!

On top of the wall that surrounded the Gandhi Memorial were beautiful flowers that Lina fell in love with and made us take some pictures of them! Here are a few.

An ordinary honey bee

And a not so ordinary one. We've seen a very impressive hive made by these honey bees in Jaipur a few days later.

A couple relaxing on the lawn with a crazy, noisy city beyond the park.

Oranges, pineapples, bananas, and coconuts were the fruit we saw the most of in India.

We spent a good portion of the day driving from Delhi to Agra.  The trip was about 240 kilometers, but the roads in India are not very high speed, so it was about a five hour drive.  We stopped about halfway at a little tourist trap place.  The girls were supposed to go to the bathroom, but got caught in the souvenir section.  Lina and Nika found some pants that they fell in love with, and I helped the twins to find some skirts.  By the time Yulia had come back, we had spent money on Indian clothes.

Most of the drive between Delhi and Agra was agricultural views. My grandfather had done a lot of irrigation consulting work in India in the 1980s and early 1990s, so I was constantly wondering if the fields I saw through the van windows were the fields I saw pictures of during one of his infamous slide shows [Do you want to see India? Here's a picture of a ditch! Here's a picture of a different ditch!  Here's a picture of the first ditch, but from a different angle!  Here's a picture of the ditch with water in it!] About halfway between Delhi and Agra we began to see square smokestacks everywhere.  They were the smokestacks of brick drying operations.  Yulia got some good pictures of the brickyards as we drove past them.

Here is one such brickyard. We saw many dozens of them on the way to Agra.

We arrived at our hotel in Agra only after driving around a neighborhood about four different times and ways and finally finding someone who could point out where it was.  It was a home-stay hotel (Aman Homestay) run by a family, and it was really nice.  We checked in, and then went for a walk and found a nice little restaurant to have a light lunch in.  We liked the food in general, and it was in this restaurant that we had saag paneer (a spinach and cheese dish) that Sophie fell in love with.

The streets of Agra

A view of the city from the roof of our hotel. You can see cupola of Taj Mahal in the distance 

A lunch at some restaurant we found while wondering around.

And cows. Right on the street. It is hard to see from this picture but these cows (called haryana cow) have a big hump right between their shoulder blades, and they were everywhere in Agra. We also saw horses, camels, donkeys, and goats.

We met our guide and driver back at the hotel, and we went to the Red Fort.  The red fort was very interesting.  It was the home to a number of rulers, the most famous of which was Shah Jahan, the man who built the Taj Mahal.  The influences of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity can be seen in the architecture, and the palace buildings within the walled city were quite beautiful.  The view of the Taj Mahal from the fort were great.  We spent about two hours with the guide learning about the history and architecture, and then we went back to the hotel.

Agra Fort

To enter the fort you had to go up the hill a bit. You see these horizontal lines chiseled in the stone? These were made so the animals could go up without slipping. 

Agra Fort has many palaces. This one is Jahangir Palace.

Diwan-I-Aam, hall of public audience where shahs were listening to the people.

Those arches are beautiful!

Diwan-I-Aam

A wall from which you could see a good view of Taj Mahal

Muasamman Burj. Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son and spent the last few years of his life in this little palace . It is rumored that he died in this tower from which he could see Taj Mahal that he built.

And here we are!

This was the fountain that created a cooling mist during hot summer season.

Grape Garden (our girls thought that the guide said "grave garden", and so their imagination got a little out of hand). 

More of the fort

Amazing work on those arches!

We had ordered dinner with the family.  We had a home-style meal with the other guests.  At our table we had a lady from Birmingham, England with her three children.  She was Indian in background (her grandparents were Indians who emigrated to England) and they were visiting India as the start of a six-month tour around the world.  They were fun company.  The meal was delicious.

Our delicious home-style Indian dinner at the homestay! And new friends!

Relaxing after a long day on the roof terrace.

The rooms, atmosphere, and family that owned the hotel were fantastic and we had a nice relaxing evening before going to bed early.  We had plans to be at the Taj Mahal in the morning at 6:30 when it opened.

Day 2 was in the books!

Spring Break 2017 - Trip to India Part I - Delhi

For spring break this year we decided to go to India.  But not to the beach as we have the past two years in Thailand and Sri Lanka.  We decided to go and visit the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur).  There were a few reasons for this, but the main one was that some new friends from the Embassy just finished a tour in Delhi and they said good things.  Yulia,  as always, did all of the planning and booking and I was along for the ride.  In the next few days we'll put up posts about the different things that we did, but before that, I'll give a bit of an overview of the entire trip.

Overall the trip was a week, although we were in India really for six days.  Our flight left Astana for Almaty on Friday night at 10:30.  Once in Almaty we had to wait until 5:30 in the morning to check in for our flight to Delhi which left at 8:30.  We arrived in Delhi on Saturday morning at around 11:45 local time (the time in India is a half hour behind Kazakhstan - which was weird).  We left Delhi on a flight that left at 12:30 on Friday (March 24) and we arrived at the airport in Astana at about 10:30 p.m.  In between, we drove from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur and back to Delhi and saw a lot of interesting things, poverty, and farmland.  We ate all Indian food while we were there and no one got any intestinal problems, so we were ahead of the curve there.  Now on to the events of our first day.

At Astana Airport waiting for our flight to Almaty. 

Our flight from Almaty to Delhi was in the morning so we had to spend the night at the airport. The kids managed to fall asleep though.

A beautiful view while flying over Kyrgyzstan

After we got through passport control and customs we met our driver who took us to our hotel.  The initial drive through Delhi was a bit shocking for me - even though I've been in some hard places (specifically Iraq in 2003-04), the poverty of people on the streets (not everywhere, but persistent) was hard to witness.  Traffic was crazy, and when we got to our first hotel - it was the wrong place: it was owned by the same company, but a different address.  It was close, so we were settled in quite quickly.  Yulia settled things with the car company we had hired to drive us on our journey and we settled in with the kids.  We were traveling with some friends from church in Astana, so we had 9 of us - me, two women, two teenage girls, and my four daughters.... I think we were quite a sight during the whole trip!

We had a little snack at the hotel kitchen, and then our driver picked us up and took us to Humayun's tomb.  It was the tomb of the Mughal emperor Humayun and was built in the late 16th century by his wife.  It is a beautiful building and is very similar to the Taj Mahal in its design - just different stones.  The whole complex was very nice and peaceful.  It is a UNESCO heritage site and had a small fee for adults to attend (children under fifteen are free). There were a lot of large birds flying around and we saw some parrots and other smaller birds as well.

Gateway to  Araba Sarai

These trees are very interesting and they are everywhere in India. Look at that trunk!

About to walk through the gateway into Araba Sarai, south to the pathway towards Humayun's Tomb

Char Bagh (Four Gardens), a Persian-style garden with quadrilateral layout and was the first of its kind in the South Asia region in such a scale.

Humayun's Tomb

A view of Char Bagh gardens from the Humayun's Tomb

Humayun's Tomb

Cenotaphs of Hamida Banu Begum, a wife of Emperor Humayun , and other royalty

More graves right outside of the Humayun's Tomb

Persian-style gardens. Very peaceful.

These steps led from the tomb down to the gardens. Very, very steep.

Isa Khan Niyazi's Tomb, dating 1547. Isa Khan Niyazi was an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri's court of the Sury dynasty, who fought against the Mughals.

Resting on the steps of Isa Khan Niyazi's Tomb

The details on the arches are amazing!

I guess it was so peaceful there that the girls decided to do some meditation, or so they thought.

From Humayun's tomb, we went to the India gate.  It was much more crowded (no admission fee) and had a lot of pushy street vendors.  We didn't stay there for too long.  On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a little restaurant and had dinner.  Our first day in India was in the books!

At the Indian Gate, New Delhi

The guards at the eternal flame at the Indian Gate

This was the park across from the Indian Gate and like many parks we've seen in Delhi it was beautiful, peaceful, and fenced off from people.

View of the gate with all the vendors in the foreground. 

The restaurant our driver took us in for dinner was very small (it is exactly what you see: the picture is taking from one side of the room pointing to the other) and from the outside looked like a shack (inside too) but the food was delicious.

The kids fell in love with Indian bread called naan.

Our Changing Neighborhood: The opening of Mega Silkway

When we moved into our apartment on the campus at Nazarbayev University 2.5 years ago, we were living in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest stores were downtown, or at least four bus stops and a long walk. However, the plan was to build up around the university - and one of the main building projects is the expo plaza which is being built directly to the East of campus.

March 2015: nothing is out there except a bunch of cranes

East of NU campus. Nothing is out there either!

In addition to the expo, there is a great deal of other development going on - including large numbers of apartment buildings, and a new mall.  The new Mall is a "Mega" a chain mall that has a number of locations in Kazakhstan.  This mall is called the Mega Silkway and is the largest retail establishment in Central Asia.  It is huge.

March 2016 - the skeleton of the new Mega Mall

And a bunch of apartment buildings growing like mushrooms after rain.

What is amazing, is that the entire building has been built since we arrived.  In fact, the fencing was around the project when we arrived, but there was no visible construction until we returned from our first leave home in July 2015.

May 2016 - it is not just a skeleton anymore!

And the apartment buildings look like they are almost ready!

The ball in the center of the picture is the main Expo building.

The outside of the building has been looking done since late fall (October or so) and we heard a number of rumors about when the mall would open.  One rumor was that it would open in December, but that date came and went [1].  The last few weeks, activity has been even higher.  We heard another rumor that it would open on 6 March, and Yulia looked it up online and found that it would have its technical opening on 6 March with a Grand opening around 23 March.

February 2017 - the first fence came down.

And a week later the second fence came down. The funny thing is that they planted the trees upfront before they even leveled the ground!

Monday I had a faculty meeting, and afterward, we walked across the street to see the mall.  The food court was still mostly not open, but we bought some Asian food from a little place - one of three open fast food places.  I called Yulia and she couldn't wait to see it, so we walked over with the twins and met Nika and Lina on their way home from guitar lessons.  One of the features is a trampoline park that also has climbing walls and other activities.  We signed the kids up to jump for half an hour.  (it's about $6.00 for half an hour - so pricey here - but the kids had a great time and were exhausted.  The owner and founder is an American kid (about 30 or so) who grew up in one of the cities in the West.  His dad worked for an oil company there.

March 6 2017 - the Mall is opened to public!

The kids had a blast at Kango. The guys in yellow are professional gymnasts and circus acrobats working on the Kango team.

Lexa is trying the rings

The guys from the team were showing to our kids how to do some tricks.

Rock climbing area

Food court: really bright and happy!

Love these fountains. They change color every 20 seconds or so.

Kids relaxing in "flower" chairs

Assalting a poor lego man outside of their favorite store in town.

At the end of the day they got pin wheels which is a Mega's logo.

The best thing about the technical opening is that the grocery store - Ramstor, a Turkish chain - was opened.  Now we have a grocery store (besides our little mini-market on campus) that is within walking distance, which is tremendous.

Wednesday was the 8th of March - International Women's Day - and so school was out.  I worked in the morning and Yulia gave the kids a light day of school, and then we went back to the mall.  We bought the kids tickets to see the movie "Sing!" and some slushies to each while they watched.  Yulia and I ate lunch to celebrate the day and our anniversary (March 12th).  We ate at the Korea House Restaurant.  It is pricier than most places here, but the food we had was excellent and the atmosphere was amazing.

While the kids are at the movies, we are on a date at the Korean House

We also bought tickets to the Expo for August when we are back from our vacation in Utah and my Mom and Yulia's mom will be here visiting.

The main Expo building, view from Mega Mall

The mall is still not fully functional, but it is mostly functional, and a tremendous boost to our quality of life.  We are no longer at the edge of nowhere.  Soon we will be in the middle of everything.

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[1] There was a fun article in the local news in December that the Mall was "completely launched" in December. We laughed because they had put up vinyl signs for the main stores on the main sign for a few days and then they had disappeared.  Basically they put together a photo op in December and called it "fully launched."  It only took another 3 months to get it partially off the ground.  By May all of the tenants should be online.