Birthday at the Taj

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! I had a great day-- on the 24th we took the train to Agra, toured the old fort and then watched the sunset at the Taj Mahal. We weren't sure if being there could actually live up to our expectations, but it did--it was beautiful (and also fun to watch all the other tourists taking photos and the touts trying to get money for showing them good photo ops). We were planning on doing the full moon tour but tickets were sold out, and besides that we found out that they only let people in for half an hour at a time. So instead we got to see it for 3 hours and then went to a nearby restaurant with rooftop seating to enjoy the full moon and the best banana lassis we've tasted. After dinner we took a bicycle rickshaw back to our hotel. The driver offered to let Michael try pedaling for a while, but Michael promptly steered us off the road and into a wall so the driver quickly took over again.

Friday morning we returned to the area to have breakfast on another rooftop, this time with a full view of the Taj--a nice way to start my birthday! We took the train back to Delhi yesterday and after a bit of shopping, we went to dinner at Rodeo, an Indian tex-mex restauarant where all the waiters wear cowboy hats and boots. Definitely a different kind of dining experience than we've been used to here, and it sounds pretty hokey but it was lots of fun and the food was delicious. They even sang me happy birthday (though they couldn't quite get the clapping thing down) and I got to blow out a candle!

Unfortunately the internet is being weird here. Hopefully I'll be able to post this, but I don't know if Michael will be able to put up all the photos that he wanted to.

Monday morning is our flight to Beijing, we'll try to post one more time before then. Thanks again for the comments and emails!