Tag Archives: Agra

At Last…!

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We got to sleep in! (Sort of) We were allowed to wake up as late as 7:30 so we could have breakfast an hour later. Shiron’s mother made an Indian breakfast for us: putis and a potato curry. You’re supposed to scoop the potatoes into the puti (which is like a tortilla that is very thin and circular) and stick it in your mouth, using your right hand of course. (In case you’re wondering, Shiron is the owner of N Home Stay.)

After eating, we finished packing and learned more about the power outage: it was nation-wide and had happened at about one in the morning. I heard our AC go off and wondered what had happened. I didn’t learn until Mom woke us up that the power had gone. Thankfully, though, Agra got some of its power back so we could stay cool. Shiron had a battery that powered the lights but, sadly, not the AC.

Shakil’s friend, Jeetu, drove us to two monuments on the outskirts of Agra. It was surprising how much water there was in the roads after just one night and a couple of hours of precipitation. In some places it was about a foot deep. The road was not designed very well as parts of it were washed out and the middle of the road was far higher than the edges.

I was kind of surprised that it took about an hour to get to the first monument and then forty-five minutes to get to the next. From there, it took about an hour to get back to N Home Stay. On the way back, Ethan thought he saw Shiron in a tuk-tuk. Mom didn’t believe him but Ethan turned out to be correct! Shiron’s car had broken down because of the water.

When we said good-bye, Shiron’s mother gave Ethan and me a bag of masala-flavored Tangles, which are like pieces of cereal. We enjoyed these on the train about an hour ago along with some cookies and crackers we bought at the train station and Vientiane. (Yes, those are very old cookies.) We finally started moving again and we’ll be to Jaipur in a while. Ciao!

When in New Delhi and When in Agra

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Okay, so, last time I posted, I was in Bangkok the night before we took the plane to New Delhi. Since then, we have done a lot of things, and I will do my best to catch everyone up on the details.

When we woke up on the morning of the flight, we all took showers and went in the shuttle to the airport. At the airport, we got our tickets, went through security and passport control to get to our gate by the United Lounge.

When we finally got to New Delhi, I had watched a movie and taken a nap. In the airport, we sat around and drank coffee (mochas for all!) for about two hours before heading to a taxi to get to the train station. The station was very crowded and loud, and since our train hadn’t arrived yet, we had to stand around by someone’s underwear for about an hour!!! The underwear was on the railing of a balcony, and we think that it was out to dry.

On the train, however, we had reserved some seats so we got to have our own private sections, one for the girls and one for the boys. The train was called an express, but it stopped about ten times before finally reaching Agra. At the train station, we found a taxi driver that was supposed to pick us up and we drove to the N Home Stay.

The N Home Stay is a four story building with about three rooms on each floor, minus the bottom floor, where the landlords sleep. To Eryn’s sadness, there is no pool, but on the bright side, we sweat so much that it is like being in a pool all to yourself!

Today we went to the Taj Mahal, the Agra Red Fort, the garden across from the Taj, and the miniature Taj. I am going to focus on the Taj Mahal because it was my favorite.

The Taj Mahal is an old building that was built by an emperor for his third wife after she died. It took twenty years to build, and the emporer himself was buried alongside his beloved (third) wife in the marble building along the river. It has multiple gates, and today we had people who wanted to be our guides everywhere, following us for a while. However, as soon as we started walking up the steps, they disappeared. Hmmmmm, strange.

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We woke up this morning at 5:40 to get to the Taj Mahal by six. (Shakil took us.) After two hours there, Shakil returned us to N Home Stay where we showered, rested, and had a breakfast of toast, eggs, and, for Ethan and me, Cadbury chocolate shots and strawberry gummies. We tried to get Olympic coverage on the TV but for some reason we couldn’t get power.

The mini-Taj was next on our list. It was built for the king by the king but he never finished it. It is waaaaay smaller than the Taj Mahal across the river, but it is, to me, more interesting. It had narrow passageways, peepholes, and paintings. The stone outside the main part was burning hot, but Mom and I (for some reason) chose not to use the shoe-covers and just went barefoot. Agh!

Our next stop was a garden. To get to it, Shakil had to take the car through poor parts of Agra. The people in some of those parts live in mud huts and we saw women carrying ten bricks on their head in a construction site. In New Delhi, we saw a woman in her bright pink sari sweeping and picking up trash on the side of the road.

The garden was right on the river and is, according to the sign, the best place for viewing the Taj Mahal in moonlight. It wasn’t nighttime but it got dark fast. The clouds rolled in and the rain came down and we ran back to the car as fast as we could… except Shakil wasn’t there. So we waited a couple of minutes, called him, and eventually got back in the car. He had gone looking for us.

The marble shop was interesting. We bought a table for our living room that has to be shipped to Seattle (!) because that’s the nearest port. The owner gave Ethan a chess set as a gift. It is a wooden box with the marble board on top. Inside are the little pieces, which are also made from marble. We learned that the marble for the Taj Mahal is the strongest in the world. It has to be cut with river sand and water because the marble is crystalline. The sand contains crystals, too. The owner tested our knowledge of semi-precious stones when he had us name seven or eight that were in the “flowers” at the Taj. These stones included mother-of-pearl, jasper, tiger-eye, and turqouise.

The red fort, officially known as the Agra Fort, is almost boring without a guide. It is red and it’s on the river, but I think we still needed a guide. We did learn, however, that the giant cup in the courtyard was for bathing. I thought it was for coffee. It was raining slightly so the walkways were either slippery or slightly submerged. It was fun though, and it would have been more fun if we had been allowed to go up to the top of the walls and walk around, getting an archer’s view.

Ciao!

Entering India

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We arrived in Agra last night at eight after five hours on the plane and about four hours on the train and too many hours awake. While on the ramp out to our plane, I picked up an Olympic magazine, which kept me company along with A Thousand Words on our flight. Once we landed and went through customs and immigrations, we got some cash, water bottles, and mochas. The mochas were delicious, and so was the Oreo brownie Ethan got. My peach and banana cake was bland and dry.

We got into a rickety taxi at Post 36 and rode to the train station. It took forever and gave us some more near-death experiences. Once at the station, we waited until 4:30 to go down to the train. The doors finally opened and we piled on. We were seperated because, if you will recall, we got these tickets last week because of our visa problem. Mom and I had seats 17 and 18 in AC-1 and Dad and Ethan had seats farther down but still in the same car. In case you’re wondering, AC does stand for air-conditioning.

After several delays, we arrived in Agra. A man named Shakil picked us up, and he joked how he was Shaquille O’Neal. Shakil drove us to a place for supper where we had naan, rice, lady fingers (okra), and two main dishes. He then took us to N Home Stay and we finally went to bed. Ciao!