Day 7: Romance and Crazy Monkey Men

(lowell's rant)

We woke up at 5:40am refreshed from our longest sleep yet. We quickly went up to level 5 and gorged ourselves with a spicy deep fried breakfast. We met Thapas at 6:30am and drove out of New Delhi towards Agra. We were driving on a main highway. It was a 4 lane divided highway. I will not try and express to you how crazy it was! At one check stop we had to go through, there was a man dressed in all white and holding a cane. There was a monkey tied to this cane. I thought this was a neat sight, so I took a picture. Oops. He walked up to the window. We locked our doors. Thapas was not in the car at this time. This man then started to knock on the window. He wanted in? Nope, he actually wanted money for the photo I just took of him. I pretended that I deleted it and told him to leave. He didn’t. We ignored him. He finally went away and I still have the picture. You can see it on the flickr site. I hope to put it on here if we have some time.

For a rest stop we went to a resort and had some spiced Chai tea. It was lovely. The tea cost 60 Rupees. The man gave me change back when I gave him a 500. As I was thinking how much to leave as a tip, Zab told me, “give him 100.” So I did. I thought it was a little much, but zab knew what he was talking about I thought. Well, when we talked about that later, zab said he meant, give him 100 in total. 40 R tip. That makes more sense. Lucky waiter! =)

We went to the washroom and a man followed us around. Turned on the taps for us, and then handed us paper towels. We tipped him also. Tricky fellows!

We then arrived in Agra at the parking area for the Taj Mahal. We caught a little bus to the gates. Here we had to pay. Zab went in as an Indian for 20R and I had to pay 750R as a foreigner. As zab tried to get through security though, they stopped him and told him that he was not Indian! They said he did not look Indian and they wanted to see proof. Zab argued with them in Hindi for awhile, but finally went back and paid the rest! Haha It was a fun time.

We then walked through the first gate, then through an archway and saw one of the 7 wonders of the world. The Taj Mahal. I will spare you with the story of this remarkable building because you already know it. And if you do not,. Google it. I will just say that it is romantic. Well, as much as spending all your life savings and children’s inheritance on a massive monument to your dead wife can be. I really killed the romance didn’t I? sorry. It is a nice white building though! It is something that needs to be seen in real life to get the full effect. They made us wear little white shoe covers out of respect and so they don’t have to remove the black smudges from the foreigner’s shoes. =)

Next on the itinerary was the Agra Fort. This was a huge fort like structure that used to be the capital of India! It was a very cool place. And it has a great view of the Taj Mahal. Which is good because it is where the man who built it was imprisoned by his son because he was going to make another Taj Mahal across the river for himself when he died. It was going to be black. His son didn’t like this. He wanted the money. (or he didn’t like black) So he had his dad imprisoned and the building was never finished.

As we were leaving Agra, we saw many children in the streets. Once small girl with big eyes and no shirt came to the car asking for food. We gave her our last banana. She was very happy. It mad us sad. Not that she was happy, but that she was on the street begging for food. There is so much poverty and pain.

We drove into Delhi and went straight to the home of Nalini Aunty and Babu Uncle. Good friends of Zab and his family. They fed us supper. It was amazing. It was Kerala food. We talked a long time with them. A lot about missions and family. She was trying to recruit me for the India IVCF. I can’t seem to get away from it! Her brother will be speaking at Urbana this year. (ICVF’s mission conference) They took us to the ‘nice’ shopping area of Delhi. Most of the major European and North American companies make clothing in India, so they sell it here also. It was the end of summer clearance sale. So there were sales of up to 80% off Indian prices for high quality items. It is too bad we got there right as they were all closing. It saved us money though. I know many of you would have loved this street! Especially Julie Renee! =)

We went home at 10:00 and were sleeping by 11:30.

(pictures on flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/runlowellrun/ )