Agra

Lunch and pre- started 8:50 PM

So, Agra. We get out of the train station and are, of course, immediately set upon by beggars, mostly children. This was where I learned what a bad, bad idea it was to have food with me, I still had some of the cracker things Mike had bought, and all I heard was “biscuit? Biscuit?” I was almost afraid to give it to them, in case a struggle erupted or something, so I just kept practicing my no eye contact thing. We got in the rickshaws, which are the motorized 3-wheeled things, had a ride over – lots of weaving in and out of traffic, lots of being crushed under Kanako's bag, it's a ridiculous way to travel, but fun if you enjoy being close to death. I can't believe we never hit any of the bicycles or other rickshaws we kept getting within an inch or two of. I'm not exaggerating. Then we had a moment where I realized it's funny what becomes a luxury – the hotel manager gave us a toilet paper roll, and Allen and I got extremely excited. I ended down in the courtyard area for a bit talking with David, another guy whose name I haven't caught yet who is sort of the leader of the rickshaw drivers, and Aslam, this guy who looks very good for 59 and has dyed red hair over the silver and is... kind of ridiculous. At one point he patted David's belly and started singing. It was a cool conversation though, we talked about poverty, politics, various countries, various experiences, really interesting. The big thing I think all four of us said in one form or another, probably multiple times, was “little steps” or “slowly, slowly” as Aslam put it. Things will improve, it just takes a long time, unfortunately. The view upstairs on the rooftop was great, saw a tree squirrel, monkeys on the roof, dogs, a parrot or two, and of course a beautiful, clear view of the Taj Mahal. From the roof of our hotel. It's outstanding. Spectacular, even. So I took a fair number of pictures of that, clearly, sat and talked with Nate and Brenna about Halloween and Religion (not related, actually), got my laundry done! Exciting. And then lunch, which was this big buffet thing David set up. I had tasty chips that were sort of like popcorn, flatbread, rice, and chicken gravy to go on top. Very, very good. Also water, and they gave us a cake thing at the end. Tasty dinner, especially for not coming out of our own food money. Hooray! Less spicy, too, apparently Northern India is less severe on that sort of thing. Didn't hurt me to have less spicy food, trust me. And then it was a quick break, and off to crazy busy afternoon.

Done roughly 9:05 PM local time

What a bloody crazy day. I'll start after the midpoint and then fix it up later.

So after lunch we got ready to head out to Agra Fort, the Baby Taj, and to this area where you can see the backside of the Taj Mahal at sunset, which is supposed to be gorgeous. We start driving, more absolutely insane rickshaw driving, in and out of traffic – but the most extreme stuff comes later in the day. You'll see. Stopped at a bank, while there there were these two kids with snakes. They clearly weren't happy, but we paid them some and took some pictures, it was cool in its way. I feel better paying street performers than beggars, at least. So we get the money taken care of and head off to Agra Fort. Get past the hawkers and the guides that want to charge you an arm and a leg, pay for our tickets, see SO MANY MONKEYS climbing the walls, and get in. The place was absolutely stunning, beautiful, amazing. I'm not so upset that I missed the Red Fort anymore. There were SIXTEEN palaces inside, not that I saw them all by any means, and some parts of it were still under military use. Some beautiful red stone, some white marble, also some parrots, lots of people (a fair number of Germans, some Asian tourists I took a picture for, lots of locals), lots of English lawns which, while ugly in their own right, do work nicely with the larger structures as David pointed out. Beautiful views of the surrounding city and the Taj Mahal. We even saw a parrot nest, this parrot was hanging on a ledge and crawled entirely into a small space between the bricks until s/he was completely gone. I wouldn't have expected a parrot to fit there, but fit it did. My camera was low on pictures, but wow, just wow. The place was enormous, and so detailed – interestingly, Spain, Morocco, and Turkey were all brought up as comparisons. It was designed by a Persian, if I remember correctly. So after that we were planning to go to the Baby Taj, but the guy leading the rickshaw drivers finally hassled David into agreeing to go to a “market,” David just gave up arguing. I liked our drivers in general, but they were uh, hard sells let's say. I fail to mention, of course, because it seems normal to me now, that we're fending off hawkers and beggars this whole time, often following our rickshaws as we move even. One guy reduced his price for 7 brass bangles from 600 rupees to 100, which, if I wanted any brass bangles, would be a great price. So we went to this “market” that, as Becky pointed out later, was really just a few shops. There was a silk and cloth place with beautiful ties, saris, table covers, all kinds of stuff. [I bought my mom some silk for her to make bags with, 4 meters for 1450 rupees. A really beautiful vibrant blue and a light green, 2 of each. The guy really wanted me to buy more, more colors, longer lengths, but I had to limit myself.) I wasn't sure, but ended up going to a marble place next door to check it out. Gorgeous stuff, of course most out of my price range or not within my interest or capacity to carry. (I finally caved and got a jade wolf for 500 rupee, no haggling worked. The 1450 above, by the by, was reduced from 1600 originally. Well, I got him to 1400, handed him 1500 knowing full well I was about to be hosed, and was pleased to get 50 back at all.) Unfortunately, from there Aslam dragged me over to a carpet shop, where Swaffy was an absolute fucking genius in getting us out the door by, after we were in the showroom for the carpets, asking to see the process – which was closer to the exit. And by asking lots and lots of questions about the process and the quality, we learned some honestly interesting things and avoided discussions of price. Point: Swaffy. So we finally finally get out of the bloody place, probably more than the half hour David was trying to stick us to, but people really did get things they liked. From there to the Baby Taj... where we find out we miscalculated and don't have enough. Took some pictures from afar, looks gorgeous, that's life. We moved on from there to the viewing site for the Taj Mahal at sunset, and THIS is where the drive got... interesting.

Well, first off, I've been with a few different drivers today, and for this section I'm with Aslam. That should help, but then, you have to see this guy in action to really understand the energy and crazy. We get into this massive traffic jam, trucks, rickshaws, tuktuks, motorcycles, bicycles, ox-drawn carts, horses, the whole shebang. The smaller vehicles are trying to use the shoulder to get around and through, and of course Aslam is one of the most aggressive of the whole group. (He also clapped his arm around my shoulders and told me what a nice man I was on the way out of the 'market' area. Not sure where it came from, but hey.) So he's getting us through it, at one point he says “I'm the lucky driver” and my response was “I hope so, if you're not lucky, none of us are.” He really is skilled, though I swear, how these rickshaws don't collide with SOMETHING every 5 minutes is beyond me. We get through that and on an almost equally crowded bridge which is... doing okay, I guess, when we hear a TRAIN going above us. On this not-in-perfect-shape bridge. Wut. But we survive that too, despite David's doubts, and get across. It opened up not too long after the bridge, finally we got to a very open stretch of road, where Aslam TOLD ME TO DRIVE. I mean, to the point of placing my hands on the steering. It took me a little bit to figure out to pull down to accelerate, and he had his hand on the edge of it to make little corrections, but there was so little around us it hardly mattered. I didn't drive long, but still, absolutely ridiculous. The man's insane. He has such bits of wisdom as “no money, no honey,” “life without a wife is not a life,” and other sayings, and when I asked him if he knew who Superman was (he wanted us to teach him jokes, I was making sure he'd get one), he said “A man who flies and gets women” or a “a man who can find a woman,” not sure which, found his own answer hilarious, and cracked up so hard he nearly crashed. Which I guess is a better joke than mine anyway. So we drive up a bit further, they tell us where to walk to get to the viewing, we get there, it's under military guard – another thing I'm having to adapt to out of the US, seeing a lot more military everywhere. But it's mostly open, it is a great view of the Taj Mahal and the river under it, some storks, other birds, some goats went past us, a few dogs, great. Now, unfortunately, at one point when trying to change my camera card I dropped both my batteries in the sand. Found one, but the other I stepped on and buried. A guy and some kids leaped to my aid, I was digging through the sand, they were looking, the guy was trying to instruct me, this battery was ridiculously hard to find. Very strange, no idea how it happened. Finally, I'm about to give up and leave, the group was well and done (it was a beautiful view, by the way, though I think David appreciated it the most of all. We were there longer than expected, what with skipping the Baby Taj), and one of the kids finds it. Well, I have to pay of course, I'm thinking a small amount but the guy tells me to give the two kids who found it together 50 each. I don't have two 50s, so, not feeling like debating, I just give them 100 and try to get out of it from there. They sort of leaped on each other to get on it – I didn't feel great about the situation. I'm walking away, and they started following me. Very insistently. This was where I started getting frustrated, I mean, these kids must not be learning any other way of making money at all. And of course, how could they? There's no opportunity, who would teach them, what would you teach them, there's no jobs they'll be able to get in this country in this global economy. It was pretty depressing. They followed me all the way back to the rickshaw, still asking me for money for finding the battery. I mean, I was more than happy to give them some for the help, I was glad to get the battery back (it being rechargeable and all) and it wasn't a problem. But the continuing to follow me, and most of all what that made me start realizing about the overall situation... ugh. It's truly sad. But we finally got out of there, I was with a more calm driver, though still crazy traffic and weaving in and out and... sitting in the front, on the edge, half-hanging out of the vehicle is interesting, let's go with that. I also had a moment where we were next to a horse in the traffic jam and I realized, 30 seconds later, it didn't even surprise me to see a horse anymore. “This should not be normal to me,” was kind of my reaction. Hilarious. We get back to the hotel, dump my stuff, dinner on the roof with Anh, Becky, Jacob, Allen and Nikki, cheese sammich (some sort of bland, white cheese, but tasty) toasted, so the cheese had some smoky flavor, and a pepsi. Finished that, talked to David and Sigrid for a while, headed downstairs, paid, and headed out with Brenna to do an ATM run. Walked around the corner, asked a tuktuk driver for directions when we started to get worried that we hadn't seen it in a while (which of course led to him pestering us, but that's life), got the money, came back, and that's that. Tiring day, but amazing, the fort alone was more than worth it. Taj Mahal in the morning for sunrise... wow.

Wednesday, February 3rd, roughly 8:15 PM local time, restarted 8:35-8:50 after ATM break