New Every Morning: A Journey

The Seven Wonders of the World. You've probably heard about that list. If you google it, you'll get hundreds of different lists. Usually, you'll find the Taj Mahal on most of those lists, and with good reason. It's an item on a lot of bucket lists, mine included. I just never thought I'd get the chance to see it. It now has a firm checkmark beside it, and it was worth every effort made to see it. (I'll spare you all of those details.) When visiting Delhi, it is very easy to arrange a trip to the Taj Mahal. There are tons of companies that offer tours, and someone in Tex's office helped schedule this one. A driver picked us up at our hotel at 6 AM. (Ugh. I am not a morning person, especially on vacation. Tex, of course, is bright and chipper at that time of the day.) The drive to the city of Agra, where the TM is located, is 4 hours from Delhi. Fortunately the highways are great, and getting there, as long as you have a reliable driver, as we did, is fai...

Delhi, India is a fascinating place. People everywhere, car horns constantly honking, a cacophony of sounds from a very busy city, and a whirlwind of smells, some good and some bad.  Let me give some background info about Delhi. First, I thought New Delhi and Delhi were synonymous. They're not. Delhi is officially the National Capital Territory of Delhi , and it has 11 districts, one of which is New Delhi, the capital of India. Second, Delhi itself has over 11 million people, and when you add the urban areas around it, you're looking at over 26 million residents. I thought my home city of Houston, TX was huge at 6 million, but Delhi makes Houston look more like the small town I grew up in. On a Friday night, Tex and I signed up for a 3-hour evening tour of the Old Delhi markets. We were staying in an area of Delhi called Gurugram, the business district. Because we would be starting the tour during rush hour (although it always seems like rush hour in Delhi!), a ...