I had no idea what my last hurrah in India would look like... Recall I bought my plane ticket to Thailand as I was at a ticket counter in DIA so I was forced to be spontaneous then and fill the rest in later. Well I made a pretty rough plan the day before leaving Rishikesh (typical) but I'm pretty jazzed on it.

Day One - taxi from Rishikesh to the Dehradun airport, fly to Delhi, metro to the New Delhi railway, train to Agra, tuktuk to a hostel by 10pm

Day Two - wake up early and watch the sunrise at the Taj Mahal! Explore around the Taj and Agra for the day, catch an evening train to Jaipur, find a hostel

Day Three - Full day in Jaipur! Explore :)

Day Four - train from Jaipur to New Delhi, check into a hostel, lotus/explore/shop/final Indian dinner

Day Five - check out, metro to the airport, fly to Bangkok!!!

So it's a little ambitious, but I'm craving one final Indian adventure. Plus I haven't really had the solo backpacker experience here yet (or ridden a train for that matter) so I thought I'd send it. 

Day one went off as good as possible for the amount of transportation I was taking on. My flight to Delhi was delayed but it didn't matter because I was going straight to the train station anyways so it just cut down on my waiting time there. And I was able to research hostels and book one for the night in Agra. 

The train system is super intimidating for outsiders, and I really just had to jump into it without a whole lot of direction. I bought all my train tickets from a travel agency so I was just going off of what they printed off for me. A nice couple directed me to the correct platform and I walked up to where my car would be right as the train was pulling up so that was a good sign. I found my seat number and plopped down in a compartment with 5 other Indians. I honestly think I was the only white person on the entire train, what else is new. Vendors walked up and down the aisles selling water, chai, snacks, books, dinner, socks, etc. The train cars are loud but also peaceful. Everyone seems to be at ease and I really enjoyed seeing the world pass by outside. I watched the most entrancing moonrise ever... I looked to my right and the HUGE full moon had just come into view through the small train window– in the most mesmerizing glowing red color I'd ever seen on the moon. It slowly rose and faded from red to orange to yellow. 

After a few hours, we pulled in to Agra, I took a tuktuk to the hostel, got a quick tour, and now I'm going to catch some Z's so I can get up early to see the TAJ MAHAL!