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  • What's up? I'm Marko.

  • You're watching Vagabrothers,

  • and this is the Taj Mahal, India.

  • Welcome back to Vagabrothers.

  • Right now it's springtime in Northern India,

  • and in this country at this time of year,

  • it's all about one thing: the Holi Festival.

  • This is a festival that's extremely colorful.

  • It's about the triumph of good over evil,

  • welcoming springtime,

  • and it's overall a great time to be in India.

  • So I'm here with Oneplus

  • testing out the new 6T cell phone,

  • which has a super good camera with great

  • 4k video, super smooth and great slow-mo.

  • We're here with a bunch of other cool creators,

  • and we're staying at this beautiful hotel right here.

  • Got the Taj Mahal right outside.

  • It's way harder than I thought.

  • Actually, I think there're two mattresses,

  • and I jumped right between the middle of them

  • and went all the way down to the bed frame.

  • The first thing we're doing is we're going to Agra Market.

  • This place has been a trading town for centuries, for millennia and

  • we're going to go see what we can find.

  • You can always find some cool stuff.

  • It's always like spices and street food and

  • awesome souvenirs.

  • Okay, so starting off with some street food,

  • I got a local specialty here.

  • This is a samosa.. We have a chili sauce

  • Inside of the samosa is potato.

  • Here we go, and this cost twelve cents.

  • That's eight rupees.

  • Indian food is one of my favorite things about coming here,

  • and the street food I think is actually really, really good.

  • A lot of people are worried when they come to India.

  • Is it safe? I'd say," Yes."

  • For the most part a place that's busy

  • that's turning over a lot of business is usually very safe.

  • And you know, if you get a little Delhi Belly,

  • it's part of the experience.

  • By the way, if you're wondering who's behind the camera..

  • It'sTaylor O'Sullivan here.

  • The hungriest girl in the whole world.

  • Always eating.

  • We also [ have] here the great Louis. Yes, bro.

  • Cam. Boom. Boom.

  • Fifth time in India?

  • Fifth time in India, yeah.

  • Second time in New Delhi.

  • Second time here. Nice.

  • Right now we're in the Agra Market.

  • The word for "market" in Hindi is "chawok."

  • and there're all sorts of different vendors here.

  • There's street food.

  • There's like everyday things you might need to get.

  • There're specialities from the region,

  • and this place is you know..

  • Agra nowadays is really famous for the Taj Mahal,

  • but you know by the horns that we're in India.

  • Agra today is famous for the Taj Mahal.

  • It's like the most iconic building in India,

  • but historically this has been a crossroads.

  • It's been a trading place,

  • and it's been the capital of India for a long time.

  • It was the capital the Mughal Empire

  • That's one of the most important empires that changed the shape of India for the rest of their history.

  • So, it's Friday night.

  • We're standing out front of a mosque,

  • and they just did the call to prayer.

  • Friday night is the Sabbath in the Islamic religion,

  • and so a lot of people are here gathering for the weekly prayer.

  • They do it five times a day,

  • but this is the most special of the week,

  • and it's kind of cool to see this on our first day in India,

  • kind of soak up this part of this really diverse country.

  • One of the cool things about this market this time of year

  • is that people are starting to sell the powders for the Holi Festival.

  • It's a very colorful festival and people throw this powder at everyone during the festival.

  • It's made from plant extracts,

  • and each color symbolizes something different.

  • Red is for love; Green is for prosperity, etc, etc.

  • People are just starting to get geared up.

  • It really starts after the full moon in the vernal equinox

  • that marks the beginning of spring.

  • That's next week, still getting ramped up,

  • but we'll see more of that later. Let's go

  • Not a bad way to end our first day here in India.

  • We're staying at the Amarvilas.

  • This is a five-star hotel.

  • We've got a view of the Taj Mahal in the background.

  • This place looks like it belongs to a Maharaja, but it's a brand new property.

  • And look at this courtyard.

  • We've got this beautiful pool.

  • It's been a great first day,

  • but we're going to go ahead and get some early rest

  • because we're waking up at dawn to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise.

  • Few things are as magical as the Taj Mahal at sunrise.

  • This is a place that's been hyped up and talked about and taken a million photos of.

  • But when you come here at sunrise,

  • you realize this is truly one of the most

  • magnificent human accomplishments on earth:

  • the Taj Mahal, a monument to love.

  • It's been around for 400 years,

  • and it's looking as good as ever.

  • The Taj was an architectural wonder when it was built, and it still is today.

  • It was actually constructed using elephants to carry all the marble here,

  • and the detailed intricate calligraphy

  • and inlaid marble is still absolutely incredible.

  • If you see behind me, one of the main features of the building is the symmetry.

  • Everything is symmetrical all the way down to the tomb on the inside

  • except the husband asked to be buried next to his wife.

  • That's the only part that's not symmetrical.

  • The pillars behind me actually sloped outward,

  • and that's because they were designed that in the event of an earthquake,

  • they would fall away from the mausoleum

  • and not crush the beautiful dome.

  • It's absolutely incredible.

  • We're going to go upstairs and take a closer look to this wonder of the world.

  • It's blowing my mind the comparisons to Uzbekistan.

  • This really does look like the Registan in Samarkand,

  • the way the facades are all constructed.

  • It's very similar to the Uzbek style of architecture,

  • and it's really cool to travel and kind of see these connections,

  • especially in a beautiful place like this.

  • Okay, so after a wonderful morning at the Taj Mahal,

  • we're now back in Delhi.

  • And like I said at the beginning of the video,

  • this is springtime and springtime is all about the Holi Festival.

  • Now the festival actually starts next week with the full moon,

  • but we're leaving just before then.

  • The people from Oneplus have put together a private event

  • to show us a little bit more about what the Holi Festival is all about.

  • And to do that we're going to dress in the traditional clothes.

  • I have a white kurta.

  • Because it's a celebration of springtime and also the triumph of good over evil,

  • the white represents purity.

  • It also shows all of the powders that are going to get thrown on me a lot better.

  • I've also got a sash and some cool slippers.

  • It's time to get changed and get in the action.

  • Okay, so we are all dressed out in the kurtas.

  • They are "kurtasy" of Oneplus.

  • We're here; we're going to experience the Holi Festival.

  • They've got all these powders for us,

  • and we're wearing this white.

  • We're going to test out the camera.

  • We've been using it on the trip as you've seen in the video

  • But one of the cool things about is it got really good slow-mo

  • You can do 60 frames a second at 4k,

  • and it goes down to 240 frames per second at 1080

  • It's also got an aperture at 1.7.

  • So it's going to be really cool,

  • and it should be the perfect environment to test it out.

  • Let's get inside, learn more about the Holi Festival tradition,

  • and then start throwing powder at each other. Whoo

  • Like many festivals in India, Holi has mythical traditions,

  • and everyone has kind of a different story on how it came about.

  • But long story short,

  • most people agree that it's about a prince

  • whose father wanted everyone to worship him instead of the Lord Krishna.

  • The son refused and because he did,

  • the father ordered him to be burned alive in a funeral pyre.

  • He survived because of intervention of the god.

  • Okay, that's basically it.

  • People start the festival on the vernal equinox

  • when the full moon comes and marks the beginning of spring.

  • They have bonfires to burn away evil spirits,

  • and then they throw powder at each other all day long,

  • and then you have a big feast.

  • We're going to do kind of a miniature version of that.

  • We're wearing white so the colors pop,

  • and we're about to start throwing.

  • Let's get into it.

  • That was super fun.

  • Got to throw powder in my friends' faces.

  • I can see why people are into this festival.

  • But tomorrow we're exploring Delhi.

  • Had to get out of these clothes,

  • have a good night's rest, and explore the city.

  • Good morning, everybody.

  • After last night's festivities, I had a good night's rest.

  • We're going to be exploring New Delhi,

  • which is different than the old Delhi.

  • We're going to go take a walk around to the India Gate,

  • and I'll tell you more when we get there.

  • So for those of you wondering,

  • Old Delhi is different than New Delhi.

  • New Delhi was built during British colonial times,

  • which kind of functioned as an administrative centre,

  • and to this day,

  • it still houses a lot of government buildings,

  • embassies, parliament, supreme court, etc

  • As you can see here, all these buildings are built in the Georgian style of architecture.

  • It kind of feels like the UK,

  • but it's a very big spacious open area,

  • which is a lot different than Old Delhi,

  • and we're going to walk and see

  • some of the main sights here in this part of the city.

  • I'm here at the India Gate.

  • This is a war memorial originally built for soldiers from the First World War,

  • and it's also a really big gathering spot.

  • So seeing a different side of the city.

  • Last time was in Delhi,

  • I was an Old Delhi only,

  • so this is a really cool version of New Delhi.

  • This is an extremely clean part of Delhi.

  • Last time I was here I remember seeing a lot more garbage on the streets,

  • and I think that there's been a big effort to make the city more green.

  • Still noisy though; still lots of honking.

  • The India Gate sits at the end of what the British called the King's Way,

  • an Imperial Boulevard built to commemorate the new

  • capital in 1911, the jewel in the British crown.

  • But the British capital lasted just thirty-six years until independence,

  • and the pedestal that once held a statue of King George V now lies empty.

  • Well, our exploration of Delhi continues because

  • everything we've seen so far has really just been New Delhi, which is the eight

  • capital that's been in this city in the most recent.

  • It's the British capital,

  • but there have been eight capitals in just the last nine hundred years.

  • Delhi is the city that goes all the way back to the ancient Indian epic of the Mahabharata,

  • which is really, really old.

  • There's a lot to explore here,

  • and we're going to be continuing this journey at this UNESCO World Heritage Site

  • And there's a really cool place right around the corner.

  • Let's go check it out.

  • This magnificent building is Humayun's Tomb.

  • It predates the Taj Mahal and was in many ways a model for it.

  • But unlike the Taj,

  • it was a tomb built by a queen for her late husband.

  • You might be noticing that the Mughals have this tradition of building excellent tombs

  • for their loved ones that goes all the way back to their history in Uzbekistan.

  • But by now we've seen so many of their cool properties

  • that you can kind of say that they were like ancient real estate Mughals.

  • Wow, that was a bad joke, but it was funny.

  • Someone laughed there. You laugh there?

  • Okay bad jokes aside,

  • that was our tour of Delhi and Agra.

  • Hopefully, this video was informative to help you guys plan your own trip to India.

  • If it was, you know to do: give it a thumbs- up,

  • share it with your travel buddies,

  • and subscribe to Vagabrothers for more travel tips and vlogs from all around the world.

  • If you guys enjoyed this video and you want more of India,

  • check out our videos from Rajasthan.

  • Last year we went to Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Pushkar

  • for the Puskar Camel Fair.

  • There's a link in the card right here.

  • Also big thanks to our gracious hosts Oneplus.

  • If you guys want more information about the 6T cell phone,

  • there's a link down below in the info box.

  • And as always, as we say until we see you again,

  • stay curious, keep exploring,

  • and we'll see you guys on the road.

  • Peace.

What's up? I'm Marko.

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