Agra...

I'm so glad that I was able to catch up with this tour. I have wanted to see the Taj Mahal for as long as I can remember. One might worry that the actual experience might be disappointing in comparison with a lifetime of anticipation. But, fortunately, the other people on my tour were wonderful, and we had a great time together. This made the day all the more exciting.

The tour bus hadn't arrived when I got to the hotel. I sat to wait with some of the others. This is where I first met Doreen, an entrepreneur from Zambia, who was in Delhi with a conference. When I extended my hand to her in greeting, she hesitated. She later told me that she was shocked to see the mandi on my hands, and her first thought was that I may have leprosy... :) I quickly explained the mandi to her, and we became fast friends.

There were several other people on the bus with whom we spent quite a lot of time. Joan, from Australia, coming to India to see her guru... Hassan, Hirnoy, Muna, and Sheinoor, Indians, but from Tanzania... I found it to be interesting that I had originally planned to go to Africa, and here I was in India, touring with Africans...

Agra was quite a drive. I think it's about 100 miles from Delhi to Agra. I'm actually amazed that we went that far, because the road was so crowded we couldn't drive very fast. It did take a few hours, though. The road was filled with every sort of transportation that you could imagine. Buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, taxis, "autos", carts pulled by oxen, carts pulled by tractors, you name it... It's a two lane road with no shoulder to speak of in most places. Due to the fact that the vehicles on the road traveled at vastly different speeds, they were constantly passing each other. There was no passing lane, of course, and the driver's sense of a safe distance available to pass was very different than mine. At one point, I swear that we were within just a few feet of a head-on collision with another bus. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen the close call, to be sure I wasn't imagining it, but all of my companions were asleep. A few weeks after I arrived home, my parents called me to tell me about a tragic accident on the road between Delhi and Agra in which many tourists (including some from the US) were killed. "Is that the same road that you were on?" Oh, yes, it was the same road... Unfortunately, I wasn't surprised a bit about the accident. I'm actually amazed that we don't hear about it more often.

The only disappointing thing about this tour was that our tour guide didn't join us until we arrived in Agra. We were passing by many interesting sites, and wished that we had someone who could answer questions. We did stop at a place for breakfast, though. I think it was a place that had been built exactly for the purpose of acting as a rest stop for tour buses. There was, of course, quite a gift shop. As soon as we got off the bus, we saw an old man sitting in the road nearby. He was my first experience with a snake charmer. It was pretty cool. I took pictures, but let's just say that I used the telephoto lens so I didn't have to get very close!

Our tour guide joined us once we entered Agra. He is a very interesting man. He had an interesting voice, and would insert dramatic pauses every few words. He was very organized, and told us many fascinating things, but wasn't terribly open to questions. The first place that we visited was the tomb of Akbar. He was the first mogul emperor and the grandfather (if I remember correctly) of Shah Jahan, the man who built the Taj Mahal. This tomb was amazing, but nothing in comparison with the Taj Mahal.

When we arrived at the Taj, we walked through the entry gate, an amazing sight in itself, and then were feasted with the view of the Taj Mahal. If you look at it one way, it's simply a big building. But, in looking at it through different eyes, it is almost overwhelming. One cannot look at the Taj without imagining the thousands of people who worked on it so long ago, some even losing their lives. The tools that were used were so primitive in comparison to the tools of today, and yet the Taj is still perfectly symmetrical in all ways but one.

The Shah Jahan built the Taj as a tomb for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. He intended to build a tomb for himself across the river made with black marble. Unfortunately, though, he died before he was able to build it himself, and his children didn't want to spend the money... So, he was placed next to his wife. This is the cause of the lack of symmetry.

I was quite a sight to the other tourists. The Indians knew that I was decorated like a bride, and couldn't quite figure out why. A few bold people asked, "Are you a bride?" One family did have a bride with them, and so she and I had our pictures taken together. I was a little worried that people would think that I was being disrespectful, decorated like a bride when I wasn't, but my Indian friends assured me that they wouldn't. Hassan (one of the Indian-Tanzanians who happens to live in London at the moment) offered to stand next to me so that people would think that I was his bride and I wouldn't be embarrassed...

Then we went to the Agra Fort, Shah Jahan's palace. It was difficult to imagine that people actually lived there. It was so big, and there didn't seem to be any buildings or rooms such as one would expect to see in a home. I guess this is what ancient palaces are like... There was a beautiful view of the Taj from here. The Shah Jahan was held prisoner here by his son during the last years of his life. Not a bad place to be a prisoner, as far as I could see. We spent a few moments sitting in a amphitheatre of some sort, just resting... It was nice.

We then made our obligatory pilgrimage to the local "government emporium" where we could spend a fortune on souvenirs. I kept teasing Doreen, because she seemed to be buying everything in sight, while I didn't buy a thing... (Not a very good tourist, am I?) There was a marble table top that I wanted though. It was inlaid with semi precious stones in much the same way as the Taj Mahal. If only I'd had the spare $5000 necessary to bring it home... :)

The drive "home" was a long one, and we didn't arrive until after midnight. It had been another wonderful and amazing day... Doreen, Sheinoor, Joan, and I decided to meet the next day for the Delhi tour. (We figured we'd leave the guys behind to do "guy" things... Actually, I think they had business, they are also entrepreneurs, and were attending the same conference as Doreen.)