India Day 3

At 6AM we met our driver at the front of the hotel.  His name was Vinod.  Rahul and Dupak (the owner of the hotel) were both trying to help us as much as possible and had hired the driver to take us to Agra.  He didn’t speak English, so it was a little difficult to speak to him for the 4.5 hour car ride.  He stopped at a restaurant to eat breakfast after a couple of hours.  At first we weren’t sure why he had stopped the car, but eventually figured out what was going on.  We went inside and had tea and toast for breakfast before continuing on our journey.

                Anyway, interesting things that happened during the drive…  Some guy tapped on our window while we were stopped and tried to sell me a monkey.  During the ship preport they told us we were not allowed to bring monkeys back on the ship, so I decided not to buy…  Another interesting thing about our drive was how everyone stared at us the entire time.  The weird thing was that they didn’t just look quickly and then look away.  They looked at us and stared.  At one point there was a guy on a motorcycle right next to us that stared for at least five minutes.  I couldn't stop from giggling nervously the whole time.  I don't really like people staring a me.  For most of the ride I tried to get pictures out of my window, but very few of them turned out well.

                When we reached Agra, Vinod pulled over the car and let a woman in to sit in the front seat.  Since he didn’t speak English we didn’t know what was going on.  The woman introduced herself as Bendu and told us she would be our guide for the day.  We had not asked for a guide, so we weren't sure what was happening at first, but it was good to have her with us.

                We went to the Taj Mahal, which was beautiful.  Here is a picture of me there…

There were a lot of people there, but Bendu said it still wasn’t very crowded.  I can't imagine what it would be like on a busy day...  We had to wear foot covers to see the inside of the Taj, which was also really cool, but they wouldn’t let us take pictures.  We saw every other SAS group there during our trip, but I think we had more fun being in a small group.  I am not sure what I can say about the Taj that everyone doesn't already know...  It was built by the Mogel Emperor for his third wife and completely symetrical.  There are two mosques on either side of it as well.  We got there on a perfect day.  It was sunny, but not too hot so it was nice to walk around.  Bendu gave us some information about the Taj Mahal and the Emporer and then waited on a bench while we walked around and took some pictures.

                It was kind of weird because random Indian people would come up to us and ask to take pictures with us.  Bendu said it was because they didn’t see many Americans and so we are looked at sort of like celebrities.  I felt really awkward about it, but I didn't want my picture taken.  They still got a few pictures of me, though...  A couple of times I would just be standing there looking at something or taking pictures and then there would be some random guy or kid standing next to me posing for a camera.  It was kind of funny.

                Next Bendu took us to a store.  I heard a lot of stories before SAS about how drivers will stop at their friend’s stores so you will buy stuff and then they will get a cut from what you bought, but since she was doing a good job of being our guide and only brought us to one store it was alright.  It was a fancy jewelry store, which would have been really nice...  If any of us wore jewelry.  I bought one really little jewel called the Star of Africa.  It's called that because in the right light you can see a star shaped shine on it.

                Next we went to lunch!  It was amazing again!  We didn’t follow the rules that time either…  We asked Bendu to sit with us and we all shared a few dishes.  We talked with her a little about Indian culture, but mostly we were all focused on the food because it was really good.

                Agra Fort was the next stop for the day.  It was also beautiful.  We didn't spend much time there.   We wanted to try to get back to Delhi before it got dark.  We made one stop at a coffee shop before driving back to Delhi.

                It was 7:30 by the time we reached the hotel.  Delhi definitely did not seem like a safe place to walk around at night, so we went back to the hotel’s restaurant and had some tea and biscuits and French fries before heading to bed for the night.