India: Overview

I'm back from India! It's going to be a bit before I can get through all my photos and write some coherent posts, but I'm trying to come up with a semi-organized way of presenting it all.

In the meantime, I will be posting some photos on Facebook and wanted to offer an overview of what I did. I met up with my friend, Adam, who has been living in India for almost two years (give or take). Three of our other friends from St. Louis also came for the first 10 days of the trip. Then, I spent almost five days traveling on my own before meeting up with Adam in Delhi again for a little more tourism there.

I saw a lot in my 17 days. This was my basic schedule:

March 11: leave D.C.
March 12: Delhi
March 13: train to Agra (Taj Mahal and Agra Fort)
March 14: train to Delhi, train to Amritsar (Golden Temple and India-Pakistan border closing ceremony)
March 16: train to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj (exile home of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhists)
March 18: bus to Delhi
March 20: celebrate Holi in Delhi
March 21: bus to Jaipur (start of my adventure on my own)
March 23: train to Ajmer (Dargah mosque), then taxi to Pushkar (Brahma Temple, holy lake, etc.)
March 25: taxi to Ajmer, then bus to Delhi (more sight-seeing)
March 27: plane to Newark, N.J.
March 28: arrive back in D.C.