Loving Geometric Indian Patterns – A Massive Photo Collection

Geometric Indian PatternsOne of my favorite things about visiting the forts, palaces, and temples in India is discovering the geometric patterns that are found in every corner.   No matter where you go, these patterns appear and are a beautiful reminder of an age long since past.

The best part about these geometric patterns?  They all seem to be different!   It has been an exciting journey discovering these gems, and we went on a quest to take photos of some of the best.  Since we have dozens of these, we cannot help but share a large collection of our favorites here!

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Looking for a World Class Indian Beach? Try These Three!

In the past few months, I've been giving Angie the reigns in planning our destinations as I figured she'd have stronger feelings on the types of places we visited in Nepal and India.

After getting screwed on train tickets in Northern India, and overall really wanting an Indian beach for the holidays ever since we did the Everest Base Camp trek, we agreed that it was for the best to skip out on the rest of Rajasthan and fly down to Goa and the coastal beaches for Christmas and New Years.

For this task, Angie had been charged with finding the best.

After her research had concluded, she told me that she was taking us to beaches that were considered to be some of the best in the world.  Being a bit astonished by this claim myself, I went along with it in hopes that she was right.

“World class beaches” and “India” in the same sentence? Well, after our time traveling from Nepal to India and exploring the north quite a bit, that was a sight I'd have to see to believe.

And we did.

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Visiting Itimad ud Daulah Tomb – The Baby Taj Mahal in Agra

Before arriving to Agra, we didn't know much about the city other than the famous monument, The Taj Mahal. 

In fact, we had only planned one night to see the Taj Mahal in Agra a because of reading so many stories about how little there is to see other than this star attraction.

But while the Taj Mahal is the most visited attraction in Agra, and likely all of India, there are others that we appreciated far more during our stay in the city. 

One of those was the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah, what we consider to be the inspiration for the famous monument everyone comes to Agra to see.

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How to Travel Chitwan to Varanasi in the Same Day


To have your concept of a slow travel day be completely redefined, take a vacation to Nepal. Where traveling a 200 km distance at home would take a little under 2 hours, that same distance between Kathmandu and Pokhara will take around 7.  No matter the route, a long and bumpy ride is in your future when traveling in the country, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So when the time came for us to depart Nepal for neighboring India, we got very excited. Not so much for all the things worth seeing in India, those go without saying, but rather due to the fact that we can get back to using trains as our primary mode of transit.  They are just as slow as anything else, but being able to walk around or stretch out on a bed can make a considerable difference during a travel day that seems like it will never end.

But before we could get back to our favorite mode of travel, we had one large hurdle to cross. One long day that I have always considered to be my most dreaded of this 18-month trip: traveling from Chitwan National Park, Nepal to Varanasi, India.

That day had arrived, and we were mentally prepared for a long and tiring journey going to a city that is, quite frankly, not that far away.

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