The Smells of Agra

I know you have all been holding your breaths so here it is: FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE I WAS NOT LATE TO MEET MY PARENTS! We actually couldn’t believe it as well. We had scheduled to take a 3-hour train from Jhansi to Agra in order to arrive by 8:30 am and start our guided tour with out parents. (My parents were actually arriving at 8:15 am so we didn’t have much breathing room should the train not be on time.) Technically, we actually didn’t have a ticket on this train. We had tried to book one in Khajaraho, but were only able to get on the waiting list. We had hoped that once we got to the train station we would find out that we had been given a seat, however, we could find anyone at the station who had any clue about our train. Thus, when our train arrived (on time I may add) we just got on figuring we could keep slipping rupees to the conductor until he magically got us a seat. On the train we found the passenger list and low-and-behold we had been assigned a seat! HOWEVER, that didn’t seem to matter to the people who were already in our seat. This is the part of traveling where my little Lester loses some of her patience and steam comes out of her ears. As I am determined to get the conductor and let him resolve the problem, Leslie just plants herself in the seat and doesn’t get up. Well I don’t know if they were just being nice, or if Leslie scared them, but the guy took one look at her and turn to me and said, “It’s OK. No Problem.” and left.

The journey took three hours as promised and we arrived in Agra, right on time. Now I had warned my parents in emails about what to expect when in India. I had told them that the train station are dirty places where people hassle you left and right about anything and everything, so Leslie and I fully expected to be there to comfort my parents after their inevitable culture shock upon arriving in Agra. What we didn’t realize it that Agra is an anomaly when it comes to train stations. It’s actually clean, and well patrolled by tourist police that keep out the touts that hassle you about your hotel, taxis, food, etc. So when my parents arrive they look at us as if we are a bunch of wimps. “This is what you said is going to be so crazy?” To top it off, our own personal driver and greeter meets us in a car nicer than most cars I see driving through the Upper East Side of New York. Our bags are carried for us and the greeter even offers to confirm our continuing train ticket for us while we are ‘touring’ for the day. Leslie and I both look at each other and smile as if to say, “looks like we are now traveling first class!” We spent the entire day in Agra with our personal tour guide in our personal car wanting for nothing! Of course nothing I had warned my parents about was experienced that day. The tour guide did almost everything for us, including ordering for us at the restaurant! In all honesty, as much as it was nice to be catered to and have a break from survival mode, it was definitely NOT my style of traveling. I really missed the bargaining with every rickshaw driver, shoving my way to the front of the lines and combing the streets for the most authentic out-of-the-tourist-path restaurant to dine at. Therefore, it probably not hard to comprehend that out tour guide and I didn’t hit it off so well! As he was trying to convince my dad to hire a car an driver for his entire two weeks in India, I was arguing for the opposite and most likely insulting him by insinuating that ‘tour guide’ travel was sterile and a waste of money. Of course, he said that my style was a waste of time and in the end we would spend more time stuck on busses that seeing things. I told him I liked the busses. He rolled his eyes.

The other reason I dislike guides is when I am on a guided tour I feel like I am the lone spectator an open mic for amateur comedians. Luckily, this guy wasn’t stuffed with a bunch of stale jokes, but instead determined to make the building of the Taj Mahal as over-dramatic as CBS’s promos for the Survivor Finales. In all fairness, at this point I was so bothered by him trying to get my dad to stuff us in a van throughout Rajasthan for the next two weeks, that I probably was a little biased once we actually got to the Taj and he started his monologue.

So here is what everyone wants to know. Is the Taj as amazing as they say? The answer is yes. It truly is an amazing piece of architecture and breathtakingly well preserved. There is truly nothing like it in the world and the artistry and detail are amazing. I especially enjoyed the incredible marble inlay inside the main dome. Now, having said that, did it change my life? (I may be killed for saying this) No. For some reason the Taj didn’t do it for me in the way Angkor Watt did. Maybe it’s because it is much smaller and museum like in the way you tour through it or it could be that it was a rainy day and when everyone had to take of their shoes to enter the main tomb, the smell of wet feet permeated the air (and all my future memories of my visit!) The other very disappoint think about the Taj is how little we got hassled on our way to the entrance.

In every guidebook and everyone you meet, talk about the walk to the entrance of the Taj being the most annoying and in-your-face experience in all of India. One Kiwi (New Zealander) we met in Varkala said that he actually picked up one of the trinket sellers by the throat after being so bothered by his persistence in trying to sell him a mini marble statue of the Taj. So Leslie and I were ready. We had our video camera prepared so that we could document the craziness as well as our iPods that we were going to pump full blast in our ears if things got to be too much and we needed to shut out our surroundings. To our disappointment, there was neither mayhem nor maddening crowds. Sure there were a couple t-shirt sellers trying to pawn t-shirts the thickness of rice paper on us, but nothing compared with the outrageous stories we had heard. I almost bought a 20 rupee “sandalwood” chess set from a guy hoping that maybe that would attract the swam like flies on shit. Maybe it was an off day for the trinket business. Maybe Leslie and I just look like bums with no money. I don’t know. Very disappointing…

We finished our day in Agra in time to catch our over night train to Jodhpur. My parents headed back to Delhi to spend the night and hop a flight to Jodhpur in the morning. (They were still on the first class tour!) We shall meet up tomorrow and start our desert camel trek!!