Day 10 again started quite early, no more than an hour after
I finally fell asleep on the train. We
again stood around for thirty minutes or so waiting for the stop and exited the
train. The train station was
ridiculously crowded for 2 AM. I learned
later on that there is a reason that the station is so crowded with people at 2
AM. They are all lying around on the
ground, not waiting on a red eye train, but because at night they just turn the
station into their homeless shelter.
We arrived at the hotel for a few hours of “sleep” before
our super touristy day in Agra. For our
group of 15 people, we had 3 rooms. We
sent the two married couples to one room, the girls to a second room, and the
six remaining men to the third room. We
opened the door to find exactly what we were hoping for: two twin beds, and a
marble floor. Two guys manned up and
took the floor immediately. There were
no spare pillows or blankets either, so the beds they made were their backpacks
for pillows, the towels from the bathroom for “mattresses” and no
blankets. The other four of us had the
task of fitting onto two twin beds.
The two younger, skinnier guys dove straight onto one bed
and slept great. The remaining two of us
stared at the remaining bed, thinking that it didn’t look like a great option
for just one of us. While the other two
had comfortably squeezed their skinny selves on the bed opposite spoon position
with a tiny gap between them, that option was not on the table for my bed. We decided to go no spoonsies, but definitely
hourglassed with butts bumping in the middle.
The obvious thought is “well this is awkward” but the feelings of
awkwardness quickly dissipate when you are instead focused on having the worst
night of sleep in your entire life.
In four hours, I think that I fell asleep twenty separate
times, and achieved roughly eight minutes of sleep. My arm fell asleep three times from the
circulation crushing angles I had to lay down at. Oh, and we had to share a pillow too. Around 6 AM one of the guys on the floor
decided that he was ready to have his back hurt while standing up instead, and
left the room. I proceeded to take his
entire pack of towels and roll them up into a single pillow lump, and lay
straight on the marble floor in the 18 inch space between our bed and wall and
got the best sleep of my night for the next hour.
After a quick hotel breakfast, we were off to do what most
white people in India come to do: See the Taj Mahal. The building is incredible, although it’s
smaller than we expected. The symmetry
between the building and the gate and the surrounding reflective pools are all
brilliant as well, all perfectly aligned so that you can see the peak of the
Taj perfectly right through the center of the gate, and in all the pools as
well. Inside the grounds I saw a cat
that looked to not be starving to death, and that was a really great experience
too.
We learned several amazing details about the construction of
the building and man who oversaw its assembly.
I don’t want to write it all out, because you can find that elsewhere,
but one fact I loved was that when it was done the man who ordered it built had
the main architects hands cut off so he could never make anything better. That’s one way of saying thank you.
The experience is mostly all on the outside of the building,
as the inside is a mausoleum and guards keep traffic moving quickly straight
through, and all photography is strictly off limits. The tour guide of ours really did a great job
of not letting pesky rules get in the way of his tour though, halting us all
inside the building to explain stuff until guards berated us into moving. Later, he asked our group leader for his phone,
so he could use the flashlight to show the reflections in some gems on the
wall. Our leader complied, and then
watched a security guard walk over and take his phone away from the guide and
walk away casually. That led to a
sketchy few minutes of asking the question “did we just lose the only phone
with all of our in country contacts on it?”
After a few minutes of arguing with the guard, the guide eventually got
the phone back, and we proceeded out of the building, presumably so he could
find a new way to be bad at his job.
After the Taj, our group was ready for air
conditioning. We went to a factory where
they showed us how they make all the marble artwork. Holy cow, it’s incredible. Absolutely everything is done by hand, and it
is so incredibly detailed. One young man
showed me a flower he had made that was barely visible on his fingertip. That took an hour to make. Most of the large tiles or end tables that
were on display had carved out areas where different gems are placed inside to
create pictures. Some of them had over a
1000 gems of over a hundred different types.
Several were of the Taj Mahal itself, some were decorated elephants
carved out of Indian marble.
Unfortunately I can’t share pictures of them, no photos were
allowed in the gallery. The prices were
out of my range however, although perfectly reasonable. What cost $500 in that room, would cost five
grand at home. I wish I could have
brought several items home.
After the marble factory we went to the Agra Fort. You’ve probably never heard of it, but it’s
incredible. Essentially it’s a giant
castle just down the river from the Taj Mahal, where you can actually look out
and see the Taj Mahal. The structure is
enormous and took forever to tour. I’ll
post a ton of pictures, as there is no purpose in trying to capture the
experience in words.
After that we headed to lunch. Lunch itself was completely forgettable, but
while parking the bus at the restaurant, my eye caught a snake charmer on the
street corner, the first I’d seen all trip long. My interest must have been immediately visible,
as the guide asked if we wanted to watch the charmer in action. I straight up squealed like a schoolgirl,
yelled “YES” at a pitch likely much higher and louder than intended and bolted
from the back of the bus to the door, rejecting the usual pecking order of
waiting my turn form the back.
Snakes are not popular animals, but I have loved them for as
long as I can remember. Growing up I
used rifle through animal books looking for any new fact to absorb about
them. I have always wanted to hold a boa
constrictor, and as luck would have it, that is just the snake this man was
holding.
The man welcomed us all to gather around. A large number of our group was not stoked to
see this reptile in action, but eventually we all circled up. I was bouncing up and down giddy for the
show, and the charmer picked up on the excitement, asking me to come sit by
him. I was happy to oblige. What I did not expect was to have him then
drape the boa around my neck.
SCCCCCOOOOOOOORRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
My whole day was pretty much made at this point, but the
excitement did not end there. He then
took the hat off of my head and placed something else up on top. If I had been thinking at all about it, I
would have known exactly what was happening, but I wasn’t. In my mind, he was just placing some item on
my head that was ceremonial garb or something, I thought nothing about it. As it turns out, it was a basket with a king
freakin’ cobra in it.
The boa started to hiss and move its head back towards my
hand. I freaked out a bit at this
point. I knew I could stop the boa
before it squeezed me, but those things have giant fangs. They can’t poison you, but the last thing I
wanted was a trip to an Indian hospital for giant gash. After I got scared, I handed the boa off to
the handler, and then it was pointed out to me that it actually had a rope
around its mouth, so the bite was never a real threat.
Then the basket was taken off my head, and I saw the cobra
for the first time. This was another
situation where a normal person probably feels fear, but I’m not always
normal. A king cobra is probably my
favorite snake of them all. I have
dreamed of seeing one up close, and seeing it within five feet of me created a
burst of unreasonable excitement.
Another minute or so of charming later, and I was off to
lunch with a bucket list item destroyed.
After lunch, we just looked for some light shopping to kill
time until we hopped on another train.
We pulled up to an upscale store that sold pretty much everything from
idols to tapestries, tea, and clothing.
Spraypainted on the side of the building was wonderful message of
“Welcome Obama.” I’m sure that was from
the time he definitely didn’t come here.
The stuff in the store was really expensive, although cool, but I
decided to wait for better deals at the matketplace tomorrow and headed back
out to the bus.
I got on the bus with two other people and it quickly caught
my attention that I was virtually unattended and that several dogs were visible
in the street. This was my chance for
victory. I snuck off the bus and started
to wander down the street alone in a fashion that assuredly would have gained
me a nice long tongue lashing had all the real adults not been inside bartering
for tablecloths.
The first dog that caught my eye was about a hundred feet
down the street. I slowly approached it
and was quickly met with snarling teeth.
Okay, not that one. I walked
backwards, and caught another dog curled up in a ball sleeping in the sun. About ten feet from it sat a man in a chair,
just staring at the street. I asked the
man if the dog was his, I wasn’t interested in petting a tamed dog, I wanted a
wild one. He said he didn’t know the
dog, and I chose my target. I slowly
approached and was met with a slow, nervous tail wag. Challenge accepted. I closed in and………. I PET THE DOG! GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! CUBS WIN, CUBS WINS! I PET A DOG!!!! TAKE THAT AUTHORITY!!! If the
snake didn’t make my day, that sure did.
I pet it for about thirty seconds as it melted in my hand, perhaps
experiencing love from a human being for the first time in its life, and
snapped a picture for proof.
I jumped back to the bus and bathed in hand sanitizer and
awaited the groups return so I could boast of my accomplishment. My story was met with eye rolls and concerns
about how rabid I may or not currently be.
Those concerns are obviously foolish. I wasn’t bit, and was barely even thinking
about biting everyone else. Blood does
sound good though.
Afterwards, we took one more pit stop at a jewelry store
where they make the merchandise in store.
This was clearly on the bottom rung of the tourist attraction ladder,
and about half the group stayed on the bus, but I had only a few hours of India
left to experience and I was going to absorb every last second I could. It was a chance to walk the street a bit and
maybe catch another pet-thirsty dog.
In the store, they showed a bunch of expensive jewels. I advised I had no need of any jewelry, they
asked about ladies in my life. I again
advised no opportunity there, they countered by saying something could be
arranged. That’s a negotiation technique
I’m not used to at home, but I held strong and declined still. Fun note though, they had one ring that costs
35 million rupees, or roughly $500,000 US dollars. I countered with a $50, they declined. I tried.
In the next room though, I encountered unexpected
temptations in the form of vintage stabby things. Knifes, and these redonkulously awesome
things that fit over your hand and essentially become Wolverine claws. These I was willing to negotiate for. I had been hoping to get the real Indian
bartering experience on the trip and this was the time. Eventually I bought a
curved dagger with an elephant head handle, and case decorated with paintings
in actual silver. I may have gone over
budget a bit.
On the other side of the room I saw the most amazing
needlework of my lifetime. I have been
amazed by several of these items throughout the trip, but know all of them are
out of my budget, so haven’t bothered taking time to stare at most. On the wall here was a roughly eight foot
wide hand embroidered picture of a tiger mauling a zebra in the jungle, and
it’s just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Among the highlights are a small trail of
blood dripping from the zebras freshly snapped neck, and a carefully crafted
zebra phallic portion to be anatomically correct.
I still didn’t ask the price but couldn’t help but stare for
a while.
After the store, the group boarded the train to spend a
final day in Delhi. Whilst waiting for
the train to take off, I stared out the window trying to distinguish what
animal I was seeing. It was a bit in the
distance and I was getting that curved window distortion effect. I couldn’t tell if it was a dog, two dogs
standing close to each other, or a goat.
I verbally processed this, and others got involved in trying to
understand what it was. Eventually, I
got bored of the mystery and just went sarcastic with it, declaring it to be an
albino tiger. To my surprise, a group
member bought into that, and I got to run with the joke for a few minutes.
It was a goat.
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