Trustworthy Taj Mahal

After spending two long nights in the hotel, never changing clothes (Gross I know), and it taking way to long to get the release documents from the hospital, we were off to the Taj Mahal.  

The Taj is only 200kms, but as we couldn't leave until 9:30ish traffic was pretty bad and it took almost four hours.  Cami and I were mostly just glad to get out of the hospital.  

Finally out of the Hospital - Looking pretty good for a sick couple

So, the drive was somewhat eventful and it was nice to see some of the countryside although it wasn't quite as rural as I was hoping.  All along the road you would pass a collection of colourfully decorated transport trucks, tractors, oxen drawn wagons, unhelmetted motorcyclists, and crammed tuk tuks - all of which I tried to take pictures of.  (There were also fresh veggie carts w/ beautiful vegetables, next to still water puddles and garbage piles and the veggies had flies.... this was normal...)

Small town with a market and a picture of a tractor - we saw lots like this one

These are the colourfully decorated transport trucks.

One thing to notice on the truck is the Horn Please sign.  There is a constant honking of horns while you are driving in India and signs like these are on every truck and car encouraging Indians to keep up the noise pollution.  

Cows hanging out on the side of the road, with transport trucks and tractors in the background 

I liked this guy's truck, it looks like he built it himself.  

Welcome to Agra 

So this is a Tuk Tuk crammed with probably >10 people.  4 on the back 

Same Tuk Tuk- my count is probably three or four in the back seat, 3 in the middle and at least three in the front.  This was the norm.  

And when there is no room in the bus, you ride on the roof 

Cami and I rode with Y.P. only stopping a couple of times along the way.  He was a great driver.  

First story was when we were crossing the border into another state.  At the border crossing they have all of these beggars and entertainerish people.  The first one that approached our car was a guy with a talented monkey.  He was asking for money and such and he wanted us to get out of the car to take pictures with him and his monkey, but that wasn't happening.  So I took out the camera and took a couple of pictures of him and his monkey.  He seemed ok with it at first, his monkey even did backflips on command which I had never seen a monkey do.  It was pretty cool, but I wasn't about to roll down my window and give him money.  Then the monkey pimp came over.  He was an angry man and while he didn't speak english I got the impression that he was pretty pissed that I took pictures of the monkey without paying the guy.  He tried to open the door, but I had locked it.  He was all yelling at me and I just took the camera and showed him that I deleted the photos.  That seem to pacify him a bit, but I'm pretty sure he threatened me or said something fairly threatening. Not really cool, but I wasn't about to open the door or window for these guys.  Not Happening.  There was also this transvestite looking person that tried to solicit something from our driver and a couple of beggars that persistently begged on Cami's side of the car. Not fun.  There were a couple of times that I gave some beggars money, like this one time where this guy came up to my Tuk Tuk when I was on my way back to the Hospital and his foot looked like it was going to have to be amputated.  It was all twisted and broken, and there was a gaping bleeding wound in the top of it that was probably 6 inches long and an inch wide.  It was really sad.  It's so hard when there is so much poverty and YP said that most of the money will go to fuel drug addictions.  

Anyway, second story.  

We had stopped at this place to eat and while we weren't feeling up to much we grabbed some crackers, cookies, water and some MINT CHOCOLATE GUM!!! (The same gum you get at Target, it was really expensive for India). That gum was delicious.  YP also wanted to grab some tea and some food, but he sat in a different section than we did.  So we sat down, I put my bag on the back of the seat and ate some crackers.  When YP was done we grabbed our crackers and cookies and such and were off to Agra again.  It wasn't until we were getting out of the car to go to the Taj that I realized that I had left my bag on the back of the seat.  This bag is our lifeline.  It has everything.  It has the I Pad, with all of my school work, and our flight/hotel itineraries, it has our passports, our money, EVERYTHING!!!  I started flipping out.  I couldn't believe that I had been so stupid.  I wouldn't do something like that in Canada, let alone India.  We were ready to turn around and go back to see if it was there, when YP asked if I had the receipt for the food that we had bought.  I found it, but it didn't have a phone number on it.  Luckily his friend had the number to the place and he called them.  I was praying my little heart out hoping that someone would be good and kind and honest, even if they took the money if they just left the I Pad and the passports... When they answered they said that they had looked through my stuff to try and find a phone number for us, but they had kept everything for us, without taking a thing.  I was so relieved and practically didn't believe that they would do that.  

So, after a bit of a regroup and with our emotions still messed up from everything, including this latest fiasco we got into a rickshaw and started towards the Taj Mahal.  YP suggested that we be back at the car in an hour and a half, so we made a deal to be at the meeting place in that time.  So we went off in our Rickshaw.  

In our Rickshaw.  The scruff on my face would turn into a magnificent beard, but we didn't take a picture of it.  Also notice Cami's "smile", this was her I'm not feeling well but I'm going to smile anyways face. 

This is the meeting place - our rickshaw is behind the guy on the scooter

So after we left the rickshaw, we went and got tickets after fighting off all of the hawkers and the tour guides.  (We were standing in the male and female lines and there were men who wanted to be our tour guides bothering me and I was trying to be polite and say that we didn't need a guide, but thanks anyways, we didn't have a lot of time, but they didn't go away, and Cami wasn't feeling well so she turned around from her line and yelled, "Lockey just tell them NO", and they scampered off.)  Tickets are 750(15CAD) rupees for tourists and 20(0.40 CAD) rupees for indians, but 15 bucks is still a good deal to see the Taj.  There was also a crazy long line up that we had to wait in for a half hour, which plus the time to take the rickshaw and get tickets we had all of 20 minutes at the Taj Mahal.  Kind of sad that we only had that limited time, but it is what it is.  

This is the first gate before you get in the the actual Taj Mahal courtyard.  Cami is visiting with some other Canadians (Indians) on the left.  

The Taj Mahal.  

Another Taj Mahal pic 

Sick Kids at the Taj

Us at the Taj!!! (Notice we are both wearing closed toed shoes). 

Yup here's another one!

And a kiss at the Taj Mahal 

I wasn't above doing the classic pose 

This was the line up to get past security.  If we would have waited another half hour, we wouldn't have had time to even get through this line. (Everyone wanted to see it at sunset)

Cami with our Rickshaw driver 

SO, after seeing the Taj Mahal we met up with our Rickshaw and he took us back to YP and we were off to collect our bag.  I slept a bit and Cami tried to as well, but unsuccessfully.  

When we got back to the restaurant where we had dinner all of these guys were waiting around to meet us and I was so thankful and we got some rice off of them and they wanted to chat and and see pictures of our families.  I showed them how to use the iPad and they gave us all of their contact information so that we could be Facebook friends.  I am really grateful that there are honest and kind people in the world.  I really don't know what I would have done without that bag.  So grateful for good people and answered prayers.  

Me and the guys who took care of my bag.  

This was our last day in Delhi so after the long ride home and after grabbing some prescription drugs (antibiotics) without a prescription, for 2 CAD, we had a good nights rest at the hotel - I even got a pillow- and we were off to Mumbai in the morning.