Devri did not write this, I did, and by "I", I mean Brian, not Devri, the person who went to India. Devri didn't go to India, she stayed at home and played wrestled with kids the whole time, which she was very excited about. She says she wouldn't trade it for the world, but I think she would have rather gone to India. That's just one man's opinion, however, and that man is me, Brian. Not Devri. She's not a man. Also, it's late and I shouldn't write things late at night that others read, or else it turns out like this. Fair warning.
My work sent me on a trip to Noida, India in November along with a coworker from another team to go train our quality engineering folks over there on our processes. I work for a team that develops software for engineering teams through a section of Adobe. That means you'd never see anything I do, and I work in Analytics, so it has nothing to do with Photoshop, but I appreciate working for a company that has some name recognition anyways. Also one that sends you to exotic places.
I had a layover at Amsterdam on my way out, and we had about 3 hours to go tour around the city and see some sights. It was beautiful, and I wish I could take Devri there someday.
All of the streets look just like this, little narrow things that are more like alleys.
Canals run through the whole city, and all of the cars are parked just on the edge of the canal. I think it would be a miracle if some of them didn't end up in the canal each day.
I think this is the oldest building in Amsterdam, which means it was built before the other buildings still standing in Amsterdam, but possibly after the other buildings that are no longer in Amsterdam. I didn't see those buildings, as they were not present that day.
Another view of the oldest building. It may have been another building entirely, but it looks right. The bikes are more recent additions I believe.
I loved all of the old buildings here, especially the churches. It was very picturesque, which is why I took a picture.
Trains run through the whole city, you can see the tracks here. If not, you didn't try hard enough and you should probably zoom in. Or not, I'm not a beggar.
This was a really cool building that used to be a government building and not was not, or something like that. This was almost a year ago after a 12 hour flight, I don't remember why I took pictures of buildings.
This is a plane.
I believe this is the train station, and you can see the influence of architects from other countries in its design and construction.
Another cool church. To be honest, this may have been the oldest building in Amsterdam. Hard to say at this point. If you feel you've been lied to, that's fair.
This is a building I just now named Billy for no particular reason.
This is the house that Anne Frank lived in for 25 months in hiding. There was a museum and tour that we tried to take, but it was either not running or booked up that morning. Pretty amazing to see history come alive in front of you. Also pretty amazing that I have something coherent and useful to say about these pictures. You didn't think it would happen anymore, did you?
More pictures of the canals.
Check out how those cars are parked. I can't parallel park when it's just a curb, I can't imagine doing it next to the water.
This is a bust of a man named Multatuli. He didn't say much, but I feel that he made an impression.
The buildings and architecture were just awesome here, I could just walk around all day and look at buildings, which isn't one of my favorite hobbies, but I could definitely do it here.
This is the same alleyway used in the movie "Inception". Confession: I just made that up, but it was a cool alleyway.
My second leg of the trip, the first leg was around 9-10 hours, and the second was 8-9 if I remember right. My second flight I sat next to a woman that I thought was going to throw up for the entire flight. She was clearly uncomfortable on the flight and had an unpleasant odor. Translation: I was tired and was regretting all life decisions.
This is the airport when you get off the plane. The hand symbols stand for "steal second base."
My little hotel room, it came with slippers which I thought was neat. I didn't use them, because I'm not like that. But they were there.
My view out the hotel room. It was quite smoggy if I remember right, and an interesting mix of urban and rural life. More on that later.
My ham and cheese sandwich at the hotel. I had to take a picture because even though I'm not on Instagram, this sandwich was amazing to look at. Full confession: it tasted ok. I'm not big on Indian (let's face it, any "ethnic" food besides American and a good Thai massaman curry), so food really worried me on this trip, especially since a lot of my coworkers got sick after traveling to India. "Delhi belly" is real my friends. I was really careful and didn't get sick though, so yay.
This is before every segment on TV that shows any actor smoking or drinking. It was an interesting experience watching TV in India. Yes, there was a lot of bollywood type shows on. No, I didn't watch any of them. The TV content was the cleanest I'd seen in any country though, including America. I never saw anything close to a rated R movie come on, even edited. It was all quite squeaky clean, which is pretty cool in my book. They are very strict on content there.
My hotel. It looked really fancy and had several people there to take bags, scan them for explosives, and check your car for explosives with mirrors to look under your car. I never felt in danger there, but it was interesting to see the security measures they took.
I could write a novel on the driving there. If you have ever heard anyone talking about driving in India, it's absolutely true. All of it. One word: insanity. No one uses signals or lanes, they just drive in the open space and honk if they are passing someone. It's a miracle there aren't more accidents. Here we are approaching the farmer coming from the dell with his stack of hay or whatever it is. I didn't grow up on a farm, sorry.
Here we are passing that haystack.
And now we passed him. I didn't want to be rude and stare, so I just took pictures from 4 different angles.
There is a TON of unfinished construction around where the Adobe building is in Noida. I remember hearing something about the builder going bankrupt before finishing them, and they might never be finished now. It looks a bit like a ghost town, or the setting for a Batman movie.
American style cream and onion lays. I didn't try them, because I often eat American style sour cream and onion chips.
Get your spanish tomato tango chips here as well, if you've ever had the craving to tango with a tomato.
This is crossing the street right in front of the Adobe building. I told you, it's like rural and urban India meet, especially on the roads. Originally I thought that this was a farmer driving cattle. I later found out/remembered that cows are sacred in India, so if they wander into traffic, people will just avoid them and let them go their way. They don't force them to do anything from what I can tell.
During my stay there, I was lucky enough to be able to take a tour around some things close to Noida, including the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. It took all day and I fell asleep on the long ride back to the hotel, but it was so worth it to see some incredible sights. This is the pathway walking into the area with the Taj Mahal.
The entire Taj Mahal site and buildings are almost perfectly symmetrical to symbolize balance. This sight is the gate. Notice the symmetry of it.
I think the writing is some verses from the Quran.
Here comes a history lesson: the Taj Mahal is actually just a mausoleum (a tomb) for the wife of a king/emperor that lived in the 17th century. He loved his wife so much that when she died he built this entire complex for her. It sits right next to a river, and he had plans for another tomb just like it on the other side of the river to be built for him. It would be perfectly symmetrical to the Taj Mahal, but built in entirely black marble instead of white marble. However, after he died his daughters didn't feel like spending all of the money to make that happen, so they buried him in the Taj Mahal next to his wife. His tomb is just about the only thing that is non-symmetrical in the entire complex, since he buried his wife in the middle of it and he planned to buried in the middle of the black one across the river.
The view of the Taj Mahal through the gate.
Everyone told me that it is smaller than they thought it would be. Maybe because of that I expected something very small, but I thought it was bigger than I thought it would be.
The full view. This entire complex was beautiful and very well kept. It is obvious that this site is held in high regard. You'll see more of that later.
Me in front of it. Notice how I have something like a beard here. That was not originally there when the Taj Mahal was constructed but was a more recent addition.
See how symmetrical it is? Not my head, the Taj Mahal.
There is a reason this is one of the wonders of the world. It truly is incredible to look at, but even more so up close.
Symmetry again looking back from inside the gate.
The king built this mosque for worship on the side of the Taj Mahal. It faces Mecca and I believe is still used for worship if I remember right.
However, due to his love for symmetry, he just had to build another mosque on the opposite side of the Taj Mahal. However, clearly if the other one faces Mecca, this one does not, So it has never been used for anything. It was built purely to keep things symmetrical.
The line of native Indians waiting to get to see inside the Taj Mahal. They come here as a sort of pilgrimage and the line stretches all the way around the entire building. However, non-native tourists go in a different line that had basically no wait. Or else I paid for a good tour guide company and they bribe the guards. I'm really not sure which.
I'll discuss this in a couple of pictures.
One more picture to go.
Looking at the Taj Mahal in pictures and from a distance, it looks almost completely white and darker in some areas. In reality, it is made completely of white marble. All of the color on the Taj Mahal, and I mean all of it, are made from gemstones inset in the marble. I repeat: there are no paintings or colorings on it. It is incredible to see up close just how intricate and time consuming this must have been, not to mention expensive. Once again, this is a wonder of the world for a reason. You can also see here that the designs inlaid on the are actually carved from the marble and stand out. They are all incredible intricate.
Another view of the mosque from on top of the platform with the Taj Mahal for size comparison.
You are allowed inside the Taj Mahal itself, but they ask that you not take pictures. Even though a ton of people were disobeying that, I thought I should respect them and their wishes, so I didn't take any. It is extremely intricate inside with honeycomb carved out of marble, and then their caskets/tombs are in the middle of the room. They are also extremely intricate. Apparently they are just replicas, however, and the real tombs are on the first floor that is not open to the public. This second floor replica was created to preserve the actual tombs and keep them in better condition.
You can see the size comparison of the tower to the people in front of it. It was huge compared to what everyone made me think it was.
The river right next to it. I believe you can see if you look close that there were foundations created for the king's black Taj Mahal on that side of the river that was abandoned.
Look, I'm holding the Taj Mahal. I'm giant. Yay.
The red buildings that were shown in the entrance surround a lot of the Taj Mahal. It was housing for the workers that built it.
For size comparison, each section here is a dwelling for a worker, so they lived in very small spaces and worked for years on it.
Some amazing statues in the middle of random intersections.
This is Agra Fort. The same king that built the Taj Mahal built this fort and, at one point, was imprisoned here.
It is all made out of this red stone.
... and is quite imposing in some places.
I believe this is the area of the fort that the king lived in. Clearly he lived in squalor (just kidding).
Another really cool building in the fort. Those columns are huge.
The king and his daughters lived in here.
He built an extremely fancy building for his favorite daughter out of white marble (like the Taj Mahal), and a not-quite-as-amazing one for his less favorite daughter. She didn't take it well, and if I remember right, she was the oldest.
This is the honeycomb that I was talking about in the inside of the Taj Mahal. This is not constructed, it is carved out of white marble. All of it. It's pretty incredible.
Again, the gemstones inlaid into the marble make all of the designs and colors here. There is no paint at all. These were the king's quarters.
From inside here you can see the Taj Mahal across the way. They let him stay here so he could where his wife was buried.
All of this is incredibly detailed and breathtaking really.
Close up of just some of this intricacy. These are all gemstones and white marble. I can't stress it enough how incredible it is, and rather overwhelming with how long this must have taken.
They were working on some areas to restore them while I was there.
It is obvious there used to be more here but it was stolen or pillaged at some point.
The Taj Mahal again in the distance.
This area was beautiful. Hot, but beautiful.
This is from one of the daughter's buildings looking at the kings quarters I'm pretty sure.
It's a'me, Brian. Not Devri, she still wasn't here.
I believe these areas were all fountains and pools that were not filled while I was there.
This arch was truly stunning. I highly encourage you to zoom in and look at it.
This is another place in Agra Fort where stuff happened. You should really get a tour guide for this, it's all very interesting and informative, just not from me.
This is where Indiana Jones escaped the place with the guy that rips hearts out of people.
This picture is more impressive after looking at the next one.
This is the detail from those archways shown above. They are incredibly detailed and fine.
A medium shot of the archway. I just thought these were amazing with all of that small detail work.
This says "white man can't translate 17th century Hindi symbols".
More of the fort.
This was a bath for someone, maybe the son of the king? See the steps leading into it.
Looking across the fort from the inside.
Another view.
Here is where I started in Agra Fort, and here is where I ended.
After the day of touring, I didn't feel like taking any more pictures apparently. The next day I flew home and back to my family. I never really wanted to go to India, but it was quite incredible and definitely an experience. I have literally had nightmares of taking my kids there just because of the danger of disease and getting sick, but I wouldn't mind taking Devri there someday and showing her around. I'm really grateful I went and for Adobe financing the expedition. And just because no one asked, yes, I trained the engineers out there, and yes, it went well. The people there were really great and it was fantastic to put some in-life faces to names I had seen in email and in chat a lot. But it was better seeing Devri and the kids when I got home.
Disclaimer: Devri was not involved in the making of this post except for inserting all of the pictures like the amazing wife she is. The views of the poster do not represent the views of the Devri.
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