FatehpurSikhri Summer Palace

This is where Shah Jahan's grandfather built a summer palace. He was 14 when he was crowned king. He had 3 wives of all different religions and 800 (!) concubines. Hard to believe that...but even if it was only 400, imagine all the women living around him! He was a great ruler who brought the people together and built many great structures.

Drive to FatehpurSikhri

I don't even know what to say about this drive. It was intense. The roads were interesting, the traffic unreal, the markets were full of constant movement.

Agra Fort

I love this courtyard. It was so peaceful. Awww, to be an emperor. What opulence surrounded him. It's bittersweet though, because he couldn't leave for 6 years. Hard to imagine being imprisoned by your own son.

This is the Bollywood style photo that our tour guide showed us how to take at the Taj...pretty funny. There was an old man who tends the garden watching us take them with a very bewildered look on his face. I'm sure we looked ridiculous...

Agra Fort

This is the place where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son for the last 6 years of his life. If I had to pick a place to be imprisoned...this would be it. Across the river, the outline of the Taj was striking in the fog. He died in a room, overlooking the Taj where his beloved was buried. Then his body was taken up the river and he was buried beside her.

The carved red sandstone has stood the test of time...being over 400 years old, it's still breathtaking.

The doors in this place were so delicate.

The monkeys were crawling all over the great walls of the fort. They live here now, along with a handful of dogs, green parakeets, pigeons, and the striped chipmunks. The chipmunks are so tame people were feeding them by hand. The legend goes that when Rama's wife got kidnapped, they had to build a giant bridge across the ocean to get her back. Haunaman (the monkey king) recruited all creatures to help. The chipmunks would get wet and roll in the sand, carrying it to the men who were making cement and shake it off their fur. Rama was so impressed with the help of the chipmunks, that he held one in his palm and blessed it with 3 fingers...leaving the 3 stripes. These chipmunks are special to this place.

Morning after the Taj

Inside the Taj are replicas of the King and Queen's tombs which are actually under the floor. The stone work there was unbelievable. We learned a lot about the process of how they inlay the semi-precious stones into the white marble by hand. They still practice this art here. We visited a place where the "direct decendents" of the people who worked on the Taj are still practicing the craft. Each flower petal is made of multiple pieces of stone, all hand carved and grinded on a wheel. The red is carnelion, there's also lapis, malachite, jade and agate. The flowers adorn the building inside and out and add such a delicate, feminine touch to this stone building. The king really loved his queen.

The view up...

Good morning! We woke up to loud prayerful songs...there must be a Mosque nearby. It started at 5am. Nice to wake up to people worshiping. We have a long car ride today back to Delhi...making some stops along the way. We fly to Cochin tomorrow and start the tour of the South. We are healthy and traveling well. It's a blessing to travel with Chandru....he knows the language, what to expect, plus, we missed him the last couple weeks, so it's nice to be all together!

Taj Mahal Sunset

We had a guide that told us all about the Taj Mahal, it's history and significance...

Looking through the doorway as I exit the Taj...what a scene. What an amazing love story.

Magnificant Taj Mahal

The Three Amigos make it to the Taj...



The colors were amazing against the white marble of the building.






What a lovely door. I think this is the door to a beautiful sunset.

Journey to the Taj

We were in the car for many hours today traveling from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was an amazing car ride...so many sights along the way.

Chandru's Home

We visited Chandru's mom at her home in the city where she's lived for 40 years. We were honored to be served a delicious lunch on a bananna leaf.

Chandru and his mom...awww! Sweet!














This is the local pet shop, a boy with a couple green parakeets and two white rabbits...probably for sale. I imagined it could have been Chandru 30 years ago...this is his old stomping grounds.

Chennai Day 1

This is the Shiva temple in Chennai...

Lakshmi temple on the Bay of Bengal

Adorned with prayers.

Delhi Traffic

Today we got up early and flew to Delhi. I'm actually in traffic right now, typing on Chandru's laptop. I can't believe I'm actually blogging while sitting in this traffic. The traffic here is insane and I mean unbelievable. We're enroute to the Taj Mahal. It's really exciting...
Here's a taste of what I see, out my window in real time.
Markus just saw a monkey, I missed it. A man selling bananas wearing a red scarf, a tractor pulling a trailer of dirt and people, motorcycles and more motorcycles, two cows grazing, a field of trees...

We've arrived! The flight was long, as I knew it would be. It wasn't too painful. I watched a few movies...a couple good ones, one bad one and one painful. There was a German film about some mountain climbers in the Alps in 1938. It was tragic and sad, but did the trick to transport me out of the airplane. We spent a total of 18 hours in the plane yesterday. I woke up this morning to many new animal sounds. I thought maybe it was monkeys but it was actually bright green parakeets playing in the cocanut trees outside the hotel window. We've spent the day driving around Chennai, going to some amazing temples. The first one was a Shiva temple called Kapaleeshwarar. Chandru had a man take us on a little tour and tell us about the temple. It was one of those Gopura style temples and it's 1500 years old. He told me about the holy Trinity here, describing it as G.O.D. Generator (Brahma), Organizer (Vishnu), Destructor (Shiva). Non-Hindus were not allowed inside the sanctorium, but I got to light a ghee candle outside it.

The man told me that because the 9 planets favored me, the opportunity for me to arrive at this place, at this time was made possible. I walked 9 circles around the 9 deities, representing the 9 planets. Somehow, the Hindu people knew long ago how many planets were in our solar system. He blessed us with ash of cow dung on our forehead to remind us of Shiva's destructive nature, and red Vermillion to cover the third eye. His version of the reason for this was a little funny...the red dot covers your third eye, making it impossible for someone to hypnotize you. Traditionally, the red vermillion dot represents fertility. So it will be seen on women who can bear children (not on widows--they wear black)...

We also visited a Goddess temple by the Bay of Bengal. It was a temple dedicated to Lakshmi who is the wife of Vishnu. We made an offering of flowers and were blessed again by a Brahman priest.

Now, we are in the house where Chandru grew up. We had an amazing lunch, prepared by his mother and served on a bananna leaf.

The sights and sounds of the city are incredible eye candy. The city is impossible to digest all at once. I can only take in corners of it at one time. From the car window, it is a cacophony of color and sound. I cannot believe the traffic here. There seems to be a special frequency that everyone tunes into and somehow it all works. People on foot, bikes, motorcycles, cars, vans, three wheeled carts....all going somewhere. Somehow everyone knows when to go, moving around eachother, taking turns. I am so thankful we have a driver. It's amazing and inspiring to be here. I feel like I'm beaming, plus I just ate two helpings of this amazing pudding with ghee and cardomum.

Yoga Thursday

I just walked home from yoga. The night is still, clear, and cold. I followed Orion's belt to my front door. We had such a lovely practice tonight. After the yoga, meditation and breath work, such stillness lies in my body. It was just what I needed to send me off to chaotic India with some inner calm. I am so grateful for my yoga practice and my instructor, Amala. Her teachings are little slices of heaven. I always feel amazed at what my body feels like after class.

I hope to do some yoga in India. It will be interesting to take a couple classes. Yoga as a holistic practice, including the exercise came from India. I wonder how different it will be than what I've learned here.

Tonight I express gratitude and breathe in love.

3 Days more of packing

This blog gave me a sneak peek at Chennai. This is the city that will greet me when we arrive on Sunday, my gateway to India. Being India's fourth largest city, 8 million people live there.

I'm off to load up my MP3 player with music. This is one of my favorite things to do in preparation for travel....what music will become the soundtrack for my trip? Any suggestions?

India Countdown Begins

I started packing today. We depart on Sunday from Chicago. I feel a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation. I pray for India to blow my mind and expand my heart to all the possibilities that it is. It's a country where anything seems possible. A good friend wrote me today. "Be ready, India can change your life." How does one actually get ready for that? I wonder as I pack, carefully organizing all our amenities into a backpack. I want to be prepared...band-aids, toilet paper, sanitizer, travel size everything...but how do I really prepare? I talked to Chandru (our friend we are traveling with) a lot this summer about what to expect. He told me to throw away all expectations. That it will be in my face the second I land there....loud and smelly and beautiful and I may love it or hate it, probably both. India is a force one cannot expect, a place like no other. So, I take deep breath and pack a couple more band-aids. Just in case.


"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India"

Max Mueller

Ice Boats

These are a few boats from a regatta on Lake Monona a couple weeks ago. Ice boating is an old tradition that started in Europe. It takes really special conditions (there must be wind and the lake must be mostly snow-free). These conditions last only a few days in Wisconsin and can come and go quickly. So when the ice is good, the boaters spend a couple days out there, flying around. There is a claim that the world record was set near here, on Lake Winnebago by a man named John Buckstaff, who in 1938 apparently clocked 143 mph in a 72 mph wind. I think that's really cool because there probably weren't cars that could go that fast in that day. Recently, there's been a Brit who's trying to beat the record in Montana in a boat that looks like a tweaked out kite spaceship.

I like this quote from Peter Harken about his experience on an ice boat. “We have been clocked by police radar, yes, curious cops who couldn't quite believe what they were seeing blazing across the ice. Anyway, they've read 120 mph as we bored down towards the leeward pin. It's not the speed getting to the leeward pin that makes me change my pants between every race, it's my outright fear of rounding the pin with several other boats all aiming at the same spot and no one letting up on the gas pedal - insane idiots!" It's pretty extreme...you're alone flying over the ice on skates just a couple feet above the ground, going as fast as a car? I'd love to try it out, but I'd never do it solo. I'd consider riding in a side car...likely I'll stick to my ice skates, on my feet.

India Adventure

So....if you didn't know already...

I'm planning a big trip! Traveling is my favorite time to blog...so, I plan to publish a lot of beautiful photos and good stories of my adventure...

Adventures in India...
We leave Feb. 8th and will be there about 2 weeks. Then we'll spend a week in Germany with the in-laws.

We fly into Chennai, then up to Delhi/Agra (Taj Mahal) for a couple nights.
Then we fly down to Cochin, spend some time in the back waters of Kerola and travel down to the cape and back up to Chennai. We're going to spend a lot of time in the Hindu temples of Tamil Nadu. I love the idea of escaping the winter...this trip will deliver me into March!

I am thoroughly excited. I got all my vaccines, don't worry Grandma!

PBS is running an amazing documentary called The Story of India...even if you missed that, the website is worth checking out. Stay tuned!