आगरा

I shouldn't have pigged out on the hotel restaurant food in Jaipur.  When dinner was hot it had a weird interesting taste, which became a gross taste as it cooled.  It was a bad idea to conclude that I should eat it quickly.

On the way to Agra, I got nauseous.  It didn't help that I ordered a greasy paratha for breakfast on the road.  Hari was doing his best to find us good eateries:  he took it upon himself to test the chai whenever we stopped somewhere dubious, and would send us away if it wasn't up to snuff.  We were having fun with Hari at this point.  He taught us some simple Hindi expressions; my companions would continually say things like, "Good job Hari!  Bahut bahut accha!", or "Challo!", and he was visibly amused.

Cruisin'

Agra is the state in Uttar Pradesh which houses the famous Taj Mahal.  As many had warned us, it's not a nice city to be in otherwise, being both dirty and expensive.  The restaurants weren't so good:  the "neapolitan spaghetti" I ordered was pricey but tasted like Chinese noodles.  Hari drove us to a spot across the street from the entrance to the Taj, and parked, telling us that he would wait.  I hope he had something entertaining to do in the meanwhile.

There are lots of rules about what you can bring with you to the Taj, we came to understand.  We had to take a long walk to a locker area where we could stash our belongings.  Along that walk there are lots of aggressive rickshaw drivers, tour guides, and young kids hawking souvenirs rather than going to school.  Courtney sublimated our annoyance at being harassed by the locals into causing more mischief.

Antic #3:  She drives the rickshaw-wallah's rickshaw.

Okay, so she asked if she could drive him in a rickshaw.  He awkwardly agreed, and so got to take some fun photos.

The Great Escape

It was a fun lark.  Unfortunately afterwards, the guy insisted on more and more money, even though nothing had been agreed upon beforehand.  Boo!

On our way from the lockers, this guy Sebastian approached us.  Sebastian was a handsome young Argentinian tourist who was delighted to find other westerners.  He told us how much he was hating his visit to India, because of how everyone was trying to get money from him.  I guess touring by yourself is no fun.  He and Courtney started chatting it up which means...you guessed it...we were doing Spatilloman theatre again.  Incidentally, I'm sure that Hari eventually figured out that we weren't really a family, even though Mehar told him otherwise...

As you would imagine, there are very long lines to see the Taj.  Actually, aside from gender divisions, there were two lines for everything:  a long line and a short line.  The short lines were only possible if you purchased the "High Value Ticket", which is ७५० rupees and 10 minutes, as opposed to the normal one which is 10 rupees and a couple hours.  Actually we didn't have a choice because foreigners can only buy the High Value Tickets.  (Although I suspect I could get the cheaper one with my TIFR ID card.)  Whatever the morality, we basically whisked past everyone.

Okay so here are the Spatillomans at the Taj Mahal:

It's a small world after all.

It's pretty cool; something to do once in your life, wonder of the world and all.  Foreigners who don't like to take their shoes off get little booties gratis with their HV Tickets.

Stylin'

There's another line to enter the Taj itself, that HV Ticket holders whisk through.  Probably there's not much more I can say here without doing internet research that you can do yourself.  It's a really big tomb.

Afterwards I took some nausea pills and crashed at the hotel while my cohort milled around Agra.

Next: Rishikesh