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Published: October 21st 2006
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Well, we've had an exciting two days trying to make it to the Darjeeling hill station. Once again, the trip has given us a plethora of both horrifying and gratifying stories that'll I'll try to sum up in this blog. Here it goes.......in sequential order no less.
Agra-day two: We woke up at 5 in the morning and wisked ourselves to the east entrance of to the Taj Mahal, a mere two blocks away. After being patted down by security, we were ushered into an outer courtyard that led to the grand archway..........the formal entry to the Taj. It was absolutely amazing to see the sun rise behind that gigantic marble facade. The outside of the building is mantled in exquisitly carved marble with decorative flower inlays, all made from semi-precious stones (since I'm a rock geek, this was especially nice to see). Malachite, Lapis, Onyx, Coral, Turquoise, Cornelian, etc. The best part was that if you stood next to the taj, at an oblique angle to the rising sun, all of the stones would reflect the light and made the whole building light up. Another awesome thing was the delicate marble screens that were carved from individual blocks
(some screens were 15x10ft).
After the Taj we had Munna, our auto-rickshaw driver, take us to see akbar's mosuleum. This was about 10 km out of agra and was definately worth the drive. The grounds were the same size as the Taj's, if not bigger, but there was a distinct lack of tourists! There were maybe 40-50 people in the whole place. To add to this, there was a whole herd of antilope-gazelle looking things grazing in the vast lawns. Also included in this wildlife safari were peacocks, monkeys, pheasants, and hundreds of other birds (sorry Mike, I can't tell them all apart!). Even the inlay work was on par with the Taj's, although I thought that the red sandstone and white marble combination looked pretty spectacular in it's own right.
The rest of the day was spent tooling around the numerous arch site near agra and spending a couple of hours at a government run shop where we bought a couple hundred bucks worth of wonderful hand crafted crap...........I got some wicked cool marble coasters with lapis and malachite inlay (like the taj) and a cashmere scarf thingy. Jessica bought a friggin rug (cashmere............really really cool feeling)
Dinner Time
I thought that this was the best shot I've taken so far. Just kidding. Agra-day three: Well, we decided to leave agra today to start on our journey to darjeeling, which involved buying train tickets at the station. Okay, here's the deal......it seems like every travel day we have is utterly hopeless and leaves us beaten and broken mentally. Today was no expection! I went off to the station by myself at like 8 to get some tickets. My driver pointed out the place where I should go and the "line" is a sprawling madhouse of stinky men. An indian line is nothing like in the US...........not orderly and straight, instead it's a semi-circle around the counter where people sqeeze there way to the front and the first person to get there arm hooked inside the window wins a few precious seconds at the counter. After politly standing around for 10 minute I got the drift and used my bulky ass to knock the indians away as I swam through the crowd (being twice the size of an average indian man certainly has it's advantages!). I finally snaked my way to the front and got some tickets (although it was so loud all I could say was "DELHIIII" and then I threw money through the window). When I got the tickets, of course, they didn't have a departure time or location!!! A taxi driver out front was kind enough to tell me the train leaves at 10 after 10.......it was 9.30! I had to haul ass across town to get jessica and then haul ass back to make the train.........frantic was the word of the day. We barely made it. Then we found out the train was going to be two hours late! Fuck. Homeless beggers and leppers were all around the damn train station and wouldn't leave us the hell alone. Finally after being semi-polite for about an hour, we came to the realization that rude acts were the only way to shew the kids and beggars away.
The train finally arrived (three hours late, which is odd for India trains) and we were told that our tickets were for the unreserved cars (the last two), which were absolutely packed with people (even people hanging on to the outer doorways. Not going to work. We asked the station manager dude if we could sit somewhere else and he graceously let us sit in the sleeper compartment for an additional 60 rupees each. Deal done. Four hours later we arrived into delhi........hot hot delhi. After confirming our room via phone at the station, we got a rickshaw driver who said he knew where the hotel was...........instisted he knew where it was. Two blocks into the ride, I politely told the man that I wouldn't pay a friggin dime if he didn't bring me to the right hotel. Two blocks later he asked to see the map again. HEHE
After 45 minutes of driving around, we still weren't there. The driver kept asking all these people on the road where the hotel was and noone knew. After another 20 minutes we were pissed and so after a bit of a fight, we told him he had 5 minutes to get us there (he kept telling us we were 200 meters away!). He told us he need 15 because of the traffic and that's when we hopped out and walked away. He followed us down the street and kept telling us that we were so close and that he needed his money. I told him to fuck off and we kept walking until we found another driver that knew where the Yatri House hotel was............we hopped in and were going to drive off when the other guy walked up and told the man that we never pay people and that we need to pay him money. The other guy was going to cut the original man in! Fuck this. We told him no thanks............the guy decided we were worth the pre-established far and drove off quickly (with the other driver hot on our tails). We got to the hotel in like 4 minutes.........in the other direction! We paid the man and ran into the hotel grounds and I locked the big iron gate before the other driver ran up behind me. Whewww. Finally done with that bastard. We looked at some rooms, which were really nice and clean, and then the rickshaw driver showed up! He jumped the fucking fence! He told the hotel owners that he drove us there and that we stiffed him (and also said he didn't speak english, so the whole confrontation was a language issue, not incompitence on his part!). The owner told us that we should pay the man. We explained that the guy knew english and that he was lying.......the man was thrown out!!! YESSSSS
AFter all this crap, the museums were within an hour or two of closing, so we were boned in terms of our original schedule. So we relaxed instead. After a gorgeous meal (including fresh pistachio-banana ice cream and a tandoori platter fit for a king) at METROPOLIS, we hit the sack.
Day 3: I hate airports. I really hate indian airports. Remember that whole bit about what an indian line consisted of, the airport was exactly the same. A bunch of short, fat old indian men pushing their way to the front (with luggage carts no less , because no indian person would ever carry there own bags, even if it's a roller bag!). The flight itself was not bad at all. Jet airlines has really attentive flight attendents and serve a butt-load of food, drinks, and candy throughout the flights. I DO HAVE TWO COMPLAINTS THOUGH. 1) Indian people once again show there general lack of patients by hitting the flight attendant call buttons every two seconds........the poor flight attendants were running around like kids playing tag trying to get everyone what they wanted! 2) Jet airlines plays a 5 track long music set that includes 80's classic hits converted into elevator music....oh, and 1 hit from the 90's. These included: The Titanic theme song, Madonna: Prayer, Sting: I'll be watching you, and the worst was that the Mama's and the Papa's, ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN played both times we landed. Eastern india is green and tropical, so it made me feel like I was in that movie CONGO, when all the porters started singing that song (which is so much better than the elevator version).
Anyway, the internet place is closing, so I'll add more tomorrow, Including pictures.
Cheers,
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