Golden Triangle Road Trip

Ten day road trip through India’s Mughal heritage

Recommended days	14
Budget	£££
Difficulty	Medium

The 3 cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur (known as the Golden Triangle) are pretty much a starter road trip for those wishing to see the treasures of the Indian sub continent. This a bit of a ‘road trip for posh people’ itinerary as it was actually our honeymoon after our wedding in Dubrovnik and we hired a driver for the whole trip. Actually ‘posh’ is maybe the wrong word as getting married abroad was a lot cheaper than the UK so even with this honeymoon we were quids in!

Now, a disclaimer. These photos were taken in 2011 so both my camera skills and digital tech were way behind what they are now. I probably took 2500 pics on this holiday and there are less than 200 here of which maybe 10 I am pleased with. On the plus side, we both look 10 years younger than we do now!

Our Golden Triangle Road Trip

The Golden Triangle includes a mix of Hindu, Mughal and British sites to visit and it can by done by car, train, coach or, as we did, a mixture of planes, trains and automobiles. We booked our road trip through On The Go Tours and were able to customise the holiday to include a couple of additional visits as well as a few nights in Udaipur, ideal for a honeymoon.

Delhi

First stop of our Golden Triangle road trip was Delhi and we stayed in a standard tourist hotel and spent our free time on the first day enjoying the AC and resting after a sleepless flight. Posh didn’t extend to Business Class seats!

Initial impressions were typical western shock at the poverty existing next to fabulous wealth. We saw people sleeping in concrete pipes that were stacked ready for laying under the roads, families camped in the deadzone between two sides of the road etc. Our hotel had armed guards and was inspected for bombs before being allowed into the compound. Very unsettling.

After breakfast the next morning we left on our first trip around Delhi. New Delhi didn’t really interest us that much so we just did a whistle stop tour of the highlights, built under the British Raj and laid out like a European city.

Delhi: The Red Fort

Once this was out of the way we headed to the first proper visit of our tour, the Red Fort. Built by Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) in the 16th century this one of the massive fortresses later taken over by the British.

Between looting of the Persians and the British, not much of the decor survives but the walls and structure are hugely imposing and make European castles seem petty structures by comparison. Think of less as a fort and more as a defended palace complex, with gardens and pavilions as well as elephant stables and barracks.

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Delhi: Jama Masjid Mosque

After lunch we continued our tour of Islamic Delhi with a visit to Jama Masjid, the largest and earliest mosque in India and another creation of Shah Jahan. Obviously we had to take our shoes off to enter the mosque and I remember it being so hot that they had carpets on the marble floor to stop your feet being burned.

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Delhi: Humayun’s Tomb

Humayun’s tomb is the first example of what we now think as a typically Mughal mausoleum. It is a relatively unadorned building now although in its heyday it would have been magnificent. The Brits, under Lord Curzon, actually restored a lot of the gardens in the early 20th century, expelling the people that had been using them to grow vegetables.

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Delhi: Qutub Minar

Our final stop for the day was the Qutub Minar complex, centred around a minaret built to demonstrate the victory of Islam over Hinduism in India. Built in the twelfth century, the tower was built using 27 Hindu and Jain temples that were demolished to give the building materials needed. Originally a symbol of Muslim dominance, the complex now exemplifies the plurality of faith with Hindu and Jain carvings alongside Quranic calligraphy.

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Delhi: Old Delhi

The next morning we took a walking tour of Old Delhi. This was absolutely fascinating, all the cliches were there – riots of colour, stacks of spices, hordes of people, crumbling buildings, amazing (!)smells and basically an utter chaos of humanity. The almost contempt for the old Mughal buildings was quite sad though and we saw holes knocked through decorative brickwork so cables could be fed through and a total lack of maintenance and repair.

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Driving in India

From Delhi we had a five hour drive to Agra. This drive made me oh so pleased we had a driver! Lanes and traffic lights are pretty much suggestions, a 3 lane carriageway had 5 lanes of traffic, horns were used all the time to signal ‘I’m here’, ‘I have a car’, ‘Listen to me’ and anything else, quite pathetic and tiring really.

Once we were out of the city it changed rather than improved. Might is Right is very much the rule so if you’re in a lorry you go where and when you want, vans, cars, tuktuks and bikes are further down the pecking order. We did stop for elephants, water buffaloes and cows on the road though.

Agra

On arrival, Agra was a huge let down. It was a very ugly city, or at least the part we drove to to reach our hotel. We could see the Taj but the city appeared to be a muddle of low rise buildings festooned with aerials and filth and the incessant noise.

In the evening we went to a traditional restaurant for a decent meal and Indian dancing. Although it sounds very touristy we were actually the only whites there and everyone else was a local. The dancing was fascinating to watch and we then headed back to the hotel for an early ish night as we had a sunrise visit to the Taj booked.

Agra: Taj Mahal

Our guide was excellent and arrived early so we were able to take the back streets and arrived at the head of the rapidly forming queue. The Taj may well be a cliche but it is or a very good reason. It is a gorgeously proportioned and symmetrical building, a true peak of Islamic architecture.

It was built, again, by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favourite wife, Mumtaz, and a burial place for the two of them. It has been looted, defaced and restored and is now suffering from pollution. It is still absolutely breathtaking though.

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We walked around the outside after our visit and along the riverbank but the guide wasn’t keen on us going too far. There’s also the option of a night tour which must be a surreal experience.

Agra: Red Fort

After the gorgeous statement of the Taj we then visited another Red Fort. I guess that is an anglicised name due to the red sandstone and the original name is hopefully far more exotic! It is another fortified town rather than just a ‘fort’ and was the old capital of the country before Delhi took over.

The site has a tragic history too as Shah Jahan, the builder of so many great treasures, was imprisoned and died in the fort, overlooking the Taj where his wife had been buried. Apparently his son didn’t like the religious pluralism and tolerance that Shah Jahan practised as he was a more hardline Islamist. Lessons of history eh?!

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Agra: Akbar’s Tomb

After breakfast we had a quick visit to Akbar’s tomb, the much looted grave of one of my favourite Indian emperors. After various desecrations, including having his bones burned, Lord Curzon restored the monument to some hint of its previous magnificence.

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We took some time out to get a massage as Deb’s legs were playing up. The driver took us to a local massage place, not a touristy place at all. It was a huge corrugated building, divided into maybe 50 rooms by curtains and sheeting. No wasted comfort of fripperies!

I had an excellent massage and could hear Deb sobbing. She’d asked the woman to be careful of her leg and the woman misinterpreted it as ‘focus on my leg and beat it senseless’! Not sure if it worked long term but it was a fun experience (for me) and certainly not the usual tourist fare.

Fatehpur Sikri

Later in the morning we drove to Fatehpur Sikri, a complete city that was abandoned eight years after completion. The guide was telling us that Emperor Akbar, the city’s founder, was experimenting with his own religion, a fusion of Islam, Hinduism and Zoroastianism. He’s an interesting guy actually, look him up.

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Jaipur

We continued our Golden Triangle road trip with a few nights in Jaipur, our driver now content to take things steady when he realised we weren’t in any rush and he wasn’t obliged to go head to head with trucks to save face. We stopped a couple of times for refreshments and to watch some water buffalo before arriving in the late afternoon.

Our accommodation here was actually a haveli, a traditional merchants mansion that had been converted for use as a hotel. It was absolutely lovely and Deb burst into tears when they showed us our room. We actually spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing in our rooms and enjoying the quiet and the space.

Jaipur: Amber Fort

The next morning we drove to the Amber Fort and then took an elephant ride up the processional way before entering the fort proper. This was, although very touristy, quite an experience. The gentle swaying motion and height really did give you a sense of superiority, being above the masses on foot. It wasn’t something to do if you were in a hurry though, it was a very sedate means of travel!

The fort/palace was another sprawling, multi tiered edifice and we spent the whole morning wandering through the rooms and gardens and walking along the ramparts. The screens built to give the ladies of the court the ability to watch without being seen were incredibly decorative and the Ganesh temple was beautiful too.

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Jaipur: Palace of the Winds

We returned to Jaipur proper and had a quick stop at the Palace of the Winds – an incredibly ornate looking palace that was really just a facade, built so the court women could watch processions in privacy. It loses a bit of the romance now as the street it is on is dirty, noisy and crowded.

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Jaipur: Jantar Mantar

The city palace was another quick stop before we got to the Jantar Mantar, a seventeenth century observatory. This was a collection of massive astronomical devices that were incredibly accurate for their time. The sundial is 27m tall and is still accurate to within 2 seconds. My photos aren’t really any use as they give no idea of the scale of these colossal instruments.

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Jaipur: Tiger Fort

We had the evening to relax in the hotel and a leisurely breakfast the next morning. In fact it was a relaxing day and all we did was drive into the hills to visit the Tiger Fort. This was a lovely drive and we paused to look at the hunting lodge on the lake below us.

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The fort was a strange place to visit. It was almost entirely deserted and was a rambling collection of buildings with gorgeous decoration. Most of the inhabitants seemed to be monkeys! Obviously a tourist route, guide book and cafe were out of the question!

We returned to our hotel to collect our luggage and head to the train station. Again, this was almost cliched with throngs of people, noise and smoke from steam trains, infrastructure that was untouched since the British left and pretty much a total lack of signs. Our guide hired a porter – an old guy probably in his sixties – who lifted both of our cases onto his head (50kg ish) and proceeded to climb the stairs over one set of tracks, down the other side and to our waiting train – quite amazing!

Udaipur

The train journey was not a good one for me. I barely slept and I’m not sure if it was due to the motion, the heat or something else but by the time our sleeper arrived in the final stop of our Golden Triangle road trip, Udaipur, I was definitely ill. I threw up once on the way to the hotel and once when we got there.

Our Accomodation

We were staying in the Taj Fateh Prakash Palace and as it was our honeymoon we had booked one of the tower rooms on the outer walls and they did look amazing but they were doing restoration work on the walls it was far too noisy and all I wanted was sleep. We were moved to a room inside which was more modern, incredibly sumptuous and blissfully quiet. I felt so ill we cancelled our planned trips and just rested in the hotel.

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The next day the intended trip was a long drive to see the Jain temples at Ranakpur but I didn’t fancy a long drive (6 hour round trip) so we cancelled that and spent the day in Udaipur. It was probably a better choice as the trip had been pretty full on and the city is India’s Venice so it was lovely to spend a quiet day exploring.

Udaipur: City Palace

The City Palace was another beautiful Indian building but without the wealth of the Mughal palaces to the north. Marble became plaster, precious stones became coloured glass etc. A very pretty building though with some incredible Indian artwork miniatures inside, almost photographic quality and classical Indian carvings.

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Udaipur: Sahelion Ki Bahri

We had a trip booked on Lake Pichola in the afternoon but I think the guide was at a bit of a loss what to do with us and we’d messed his schedule up. He took us to the Sahelion Ki Bahri gardens, created for the court ladies and now used as a pleasure park for the locals. It was a lovely place and one of the few non tourist areas we visited during our time in the country.

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Udaipur: Lake Pichola

Lake Pichola was another beautiful creation in the city, made in the fourteenth century and with several artificial islands, each with their own palace. They were relatively quiet and you could certainly see the attraction for the rulers, somewhere to escape the masses and enjoy the scenery.

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Udaipur: Motor Museum

It was lovely to watch the sunset, a fitting end to our last evening in Udaipur. The next morning we had a visit to the Motor Museum, a collection of the royal car fleet. Deb loved it and was actually interested in the vehicles and the guards were happy to provide information and stories about the various vehicles.

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We returned to our hotel and then took the plane back to Delhi for the night before flying back to the UK the next day. An amazing holiday and we only scratched the surface of the country on our Golden Triangle road trip. We could easily do the same trip again and see different things in each city. The havelis and heritage hotels were superb, a real experience in themselves and certainly a place to revisit.