Our wake up call was at 0400 and we had to be up and ready to leave the hotel by 0515. And we had to check out, so we had to get down there even earlier. We had to have all our bags and everything packed up as we wouldn’t be heading back there. We were headed to the big Taj! We were taking a train out of Old Delhi at 0545. It was just down the road from our hotel. The streets were littered with people. Here, you’ll see people just going to the bathroom on the sides of the road in the ditches that are the sewer. The streets smell pretty horrifically in places.
The train station was so sketchy. There were people sleeping on the ground everywhere. I’m not sure if all of them were planning on taking a train or if they were just pretending so they’d have a place to sleep for the night. The train station was so dirty and there was no real security. We had to pass through a metal detector. It went off for everyone as we had all our bags, but the security people didn’t stop one person. We joked about how safe we felt. There were random dogs running around looking for food or any attention from people.
Eventually the train came and we got on. We were in an air-conditioned car. Thank God. Victor, Bea, and I tried to sleep, but really didn’t get much of a chance. They kept bringing us water and food and tea. We weren’t really sure if it was free, but they forced us to take it. Eventually I started to doze off and someone’s blackberry alarm started ringing incessantly. Fails. I got maybe 10 minutes of sleep on the 2 hour ride. We road through the countryside and saw a lot. There would be people randomly in fields and trash would be burning in heaps in other random places. All of the food and drinks ended up being included, but we had to tip the server.
When we arrived in Agra we headed straight for a hotel for breakfast. Our buses that we had in Delhi had driven all night to meet our train here in Agra in the morning. It took them 7 hours of driving.
This was the third breakfast we were getting today and it was only 0900. We weren’t staying at the hotel, we were just eating breakfast and lunch there. They put bindis on us as we passed through secutiry into the hotel and gave us another flower necklace and rose water. We headed downstairs to the breakfast buffet. I got to have my first dosa. And my second dosa. It was so good. They also had some more Westernized breakfast, too.
Victor and Bea were dressed in Indian dress and looked really nice. Victor and I headed upstairs after breakfast to wait to leave and we ran into Professor Gogniat, our Global Studies teacher. He was leading one of the other groups that was there getting breakfast as well. He told Victor how much he liked his outfit and told us to walk down this hallway and go upstairs onto the balcony and have a look around then come back down and thank him. We were confused but listened anyways. When we got up on the roof or deck or whatever you want to call it, you could see the Taj Mahal! Our first viewing of the Taj! It was so cool. We weren’t too far away from it. We took a bunch of pictures and headed back down to thank him.
A few other people discovered this and we told a few others. It was awesome and made us even more excited to go there. They rounded us all up to drive over to the Taj.
We got dropped off on the road and had to walk back along another road. We were bombarded by people trying to sell us all sorts of Taj and India trinkets. You just had to keep saying no or ignoring them. Most of them were children. I talked to one boy who said he was 12 years old. They were trying so hard to sell us everything. They kept offering prices and we’d say no and they’d lower it even further or add more stuff into the deal. Every price they were offering was ridiculously cheap. Along the way to the entrance we saw a bunch of monkeys. This was so cool to just see monkeys as if they were squirrels running around and playing in the trees. We had to stop and take pictures of them before continuing on. Our guide was not too pleased that we kept stopping. But, they, that’s part of exploring a different country.
We got to the entrance and waited for our tickets. Then we got into a massive line to get screened. We had been given so many regulations of what we could not bring in. The girls went on one side and the guys went on another. The guys line was massive and took forever for them to all get through. One of the boys tried to bring a big stuffed monkey in and this caused a huge issue. He has been taking it around to all the big sights he goes to and takes a picture of it. I know a lot of people who have done that. They take a stuffed animal or little toy everywhere and send the pictures to someone. Professor Gogniat has a stuffed dog for a friend’s child. It’s a cute idea. But the security people did not see the humor. He had to go and get a locker to put it in. it took forever and we all waited around in the boiling heat.
Eventually it was all settled and we could head through the gates and see the Taj. It was even more breath-taking and amazing up close. It’s one of those things that has always been cool to me from afar, but I never thought I’d see it live in person. It’s so crazy. I still can’t believe I was there. It’s huge. Our guide talked to us all about it, although I don’t think I got anything out of his talk as I was so excited to just be staring at it and smiling. We took a ton of pictures in front of it. We took a big group picture, too. Then we all went our separate ways to explore and go inside. We walked all along the gardens and reflection pools that led up to the Taj Mahal itself.
During the Mughal period in the 16th and 17th centuries, Agra first gained prominence as a capital city. The Mughal Emperor Shahjahan married Mumtaz Mahal in 1612, when she was 21. It has been said that tales are still told of her generosity and wisdom. She had 14 children with him and died in childbirth when Shahjahan was waging a battle campaign. He was grief-stricken and vowed to build her a memorial surpassing in beauty anything the world had ever seen and, that, is the Taj Mahal. She was his favorite of all of his wives. It is a beautiful memorial. I’d like someone to build me something that incredible. And it was all built by hand!
We wound our way through the paths and took tons of pictures from every angle, not wanting to forget anything. We put on slipper things over our shoes and went up the stairs into the Taj. It was incredible. We could go inside and look around at all the details in designs and touch everything, but no pictures. Molly and I kept touching every surface of the smooth marble. It was obscene. We walked through everywhere then walked around the outside. One building was constructed facing Mecca and another was building on the opposite side with some other significance that I can’t remember. Behind the Taj is one of the branches of the Ganges River. It was incredible. We could see a bunch of cows down in the water. So cool.
We headed back to meet up with the group where we started in the shade. Along the way we stopped to take some more pictures and as we did I noticed Tania, Nic, Becca, and Jason! I was so excited to see them, part 3. I ran up to them and surprised them and was greeted with hugs. Their train from Delhi to Agra that morning had been cancelled and they had to drive there, it took them about 5 hours. That made me so glad our train ride wasn’t cancelled. I don’t exactly know how we would have gotten there since our buses had left the night before. But that was exactly what Midhun had said: the trains are unpredictable and can change or be cancelled with no notice. We took a few pictures together before I had to run off to meet my group and not be late. We were greeted by a ton of photographers who had snapped pictures of us while we’d been taking pictures of each other earlier. They were selling them for 100 rupees each, or a little over $2 USD. I bought one of me Victor and Kaitlin for our “dad.” The pictures were pretty decent for what they cost.
Once we regrouped we headed back to the buses. Along the way we gathered our souvenirs for about $10 USD total. This included postcards, tshirts, keychains, and bangles. One kid kept following us and asking us to buy stuff and he wouldn’t listen when we said no. He followed us for the longest time. I don’t get why they think you’ll buy something if they annoy you for long enough. It just made me want to punch him. There were so many people around the bus trying to sell us useless things. I was so happy to just get back on the bus.
Next we were headed for Agra Fort about 5 minutes from the Taj. We were again greeted by hoards of people trying to sell us more stuff. Agra Fort is the flourishing center of the Mughal dynasty, created by four successive emperors. Agra Fort is a perfectly preserved Mughal city at the height of the empire’s splendor. There were tons of crazy buildings inside the massive 20-meter thick walls of the fort. The fort stretches for two and a half kilometers. There were so many different components to it. We explored and took pictures. We ran into our brother Chris and some other people who traveled up there. They were attempting to get to Jaipur the next day, our next destination.
As we headed back out through the fort we saw more monkeys. These ones let us get up really close to them and take pictures. They were so cute.
Next we headed for lunch. Back to the same hotel where we had had breakfast in the morning. Lunch was pretty good, but there were already so many people there ahead of us. Both the other bus and another group had gotten there ahead so there wasn’t much food left. The other group wasn’t supposed to be eating there, but they had somehow gotten mixed up. Oh well. Lunch was quick and we were on the road by mid afternoon. We were headed to a marble store and then Fatehpu Sikri.
The marble store, I’m not sure what else to call it, was close by. It was like one giant infomercial. They showed us briefly how they designed and carved the marble tables and statues and laid the stones into them. Then they showed us the stones themselves and told us to shop around. We spent awhile here. Everything was so expensive. The tables were beautiful, but honestly, we couldn’t afford anything nor did we really want anything. It was one of those things where the tour guide gains points with the government for taking us there. It’s completely useless to us.
It took about an hour to get to Fatehpu Sikri. This is a silent and petrified sandstone city where time has stood still for the last 400 years. According to legend, Emperor Akbar was without a male heir and made a pilgrimage to this spot to see the saint Shaikh Salim Chisti. The saint foretold the birth of Akbar’s son. In gratitude, Akbar named his son Salim and transferred his capital to Sikri. He built a new and splendid city, which was later abandoned, probably due to difficulties with the water supply. The red sandstone palaces are still really well preserved.
We arrived at a little area that was sandy with trees and a few little vendor shops. There were a ton of young boys and men who jumped at us as soon as we stepped foot off of the bus. They tried to get us to walk with them and buy stuff from them. We kept telling them we had to go as we were led to another bus to take us to the abandoned city. They told us their store numbers and told us that we had to come back after we went up there. We tried to be as noncommittal as possible.
All 35 of us managed to squeeze onto one little bus. It was more of a van. All the same, it was small and hot. I sweated so much. I’ve sweated so much in India, I’m pretty much over being embarrassed by how sweaty I am. The people were outside of our windows yelling up to us and trying to talk to us. All we could do was ignore them.
The bus took us up a hill through extreme areas of poverty to this town. It was incredible to walk around. It was so eerie. To one side there was a pit of slimy green water down about 10 feet. A teenage boy was walking around the edge in boxers and wanted us to cheer him on as he jumped into it. It actually made me nauseous to watch him jumped into the pit of disgusting water. I can’t believe he did that. We walked away right after because we knew he’d be asking for money for this spectacle.
We got to see where the Emperor slept, up about 10 feet on a giant wooden platform. There were a few other pits of the green slime water. There was also a giant Parcheesi board in the middle of the city where the Emperor would play with 24 women. Somehow when he played he would win kisses from each of the women.
We finished up here and got back onto the bus to head back down. We had to wait for about a half an hour to locate Pat. He had wandered off somewhere obscure. Apparently he ran into Tania, Nic, Becca, and Jason. They were everywhere that we were!
Back down at the bottom we were greeted by the boys again. We really weren’t supposed to stop or spend time shopping here so I rushed back to the bus. The boy who had been talking to me earlier was getting pissed and kept saying that I had promised to come to his shop. I felt bad, but I couldn’t go over there, much less buy something I didn’t need. We all got onto the bus to leave. They were starting to get aggressive.
We headed out for our 5 hour bus ride to Jaipur. The sun was beginning to set, it was going to be a late night, especially after such an early morning today and yesterday. I had been planning on sleeping, but Victor and I ended up talking for the entire ride. Half way through the ride we stopped at a little place with a bathroom, food, and shopping. I bought a long skirt, some oreos, and a Toblerone chocolate bar, which was beyond melted by the India heat. We got back on the bus and one of the boys had bought a CD for us to play. It was crazy upbeat Indian music. We listened to it for most of the ride until one of the girls complained about it.
We got to the hotel fairly late. We grabbed dinner before we could head up to our rooms. The food here was amazing. This place had way more Indian food than Westernized food, which I was happy about. We ate crazy amounts of food and dessert. Then they gave us our keys. Same roommates. There was only one key, which somehow I managed to never be in possession of the room key the entire time in Jaipur. You can make your own conclusions about this. Lydia was going to bed after dinner. I went down with Victor and Bea to the club and bar.
The club was really cool. It was right in the hotel. It had a bar on the first floor, a dance floor on the second floor, and a pool table and couch that overlooked the dance floor on the third. It was relatively small. They were blasting Akon for most of the night. We watched all the Indians dancing on the dance floor. The hotel was primarily Western travelers, but the club goers were all local. They don’t touch when they dance and the guys dance with the guys and the girls dance with the girls. We felt like it would be kind of weird for us to go out there and dance so we went down to the bar.
We ordered drinks and got a hookah and chilled out on the patio. It was really nice out and so relaxing to just chill. We finally got to hookah in India. We had been dying to do it, and this was so convenient. It cost us about $3 USD to hookah. So cheap! It lasted for awhile and we chilled. A bunch of other SASers came down and chilled out there, too. Around 2400 we headed off to bed to get some sleep before the next early morning. Lydia was already asleep when I got up there.
Oh, I think I forgot to mention that we only had one big bed here. This made me really uncomfortable. I had no problem with this in Nha Trang with Ally or sharing with my friends in Japan, but I really didn’t like sharing a bed here. Again, draw your own conclusions.
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