I woke up after 1:00 AM and kept waking up until 6:30. I felt much better. The diarrhea was gone. I bathed first. We spent the day driving to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. I sat on the left side of the bus with Lisa. It was a hot day on the bus. Sometimes the fans (you didn't think we had air conditioning, did you?) wouldn't work and you had to tap them to get them started again. Even then, it wouldn't always work. We stopped for fruit on our way. We had time to visit the Deeg Palace. It was very picturesque. We toured the grounds and saw women washing clothes in the same water where we could see a giant turtle swimming. Clothes were drying on nearby steps. There were huge birds flying around overhead. We explored the inside where we had to take our shoes off.
As we were leaving, a guide wanted some money for his efforts or some kind of donation for allowing us inside. I didn't have much in terms of small change. I gave what I had (2.5 Rs), and he seemed to grunt to indicate it was too little -- well, too f***ing bad. I by this time was getting pretty annoyed at all the tipping. It's very important to have small bills on hand for such things, or you end up tipping too much, but they don't make it easy to get small bills, yet something always seems to come up where you need them.
Between having to get to my hotel on my own when I arrived, the aggressive way people would hit you up for money in one way or another, the stares, the bathroom facilities, getting sick, unappetizing food and the status of my plane ticket to Kathmandu India was becoming less and less exotic and more and more annoying.
What seemed to be a huge wasp nest was hanging high above the doors to a temple there. We attracted a lot of attention. When I tried to take a picture of the gardens there, a bunch of young locals wanted to be in it which was fine. We saw some huge vultures before we left.
We had some trouble finding the Eagles Nest Hotel where we had lunch. I paid 60 Rs for two cups of tomato soup and a vegetable sandwich -- yes, that's what it was ... really. I was lucky. Some of the others ate cold pokora. I also had a Pepsi for 10 Rs which I drank while sitting with I think Lisa, Marc, Marie and Jenny before we boarded the bus and continued on.
We visited Keoladeo bird sanctuary at Bharatpur around 3:00 PM. I've read that this was a wetland that was maintained by the local maharaja for duck hunting. After a few migrating and local species were almost wiped out, hunting there stopped in the 1960s. Over 300 species of birds including many species of stork, crane, ibis, kingfisher and ducks can be found there.
Paul and I boarded cycle rickshaw #79. The cycle rickshaws took us into the beautiful wetland bird sanctuary. Our driver asked us if it was our first time in India, where we were from and if we were married. He said we should bring wives next time. He talked about India playing Pakistan in cricket. The whole country seemed obsessed with this game. He cycled us out for a while. We got off and walked around a bit. We had a local guide pointing out birds for us. We then rode some more, walked around some more and saw more birds. My binoculars came in very handy here. The birds were beautiful. We saw a hoopoo, an owl, a king fisher, egrets, cyrus cranes, painted storks and what I think were parrots. Then, the rickshaws took us all the way back. Jenny hadn't joined us as she wasn't feeling too well. Hans had stayed back as well. Claudia joked that she might have wanted to be with Hans. I pointed out that Jenny had a room to herself and that it wouldn't be very difficult for them to get together. We filled Jenny in on our musings when we got back to the bus.
As a group we decided to change our itinerary by visiting the abandoned 16th century Moghul capital of Fateh Sikri on our way to Agra instead of having to double back tomorrow to see it. It was an easy choice since going there tomorrow would have added to the time on the hot bus. The City of Victory built by Akbar the Great was impressive. We arrived not too much before sunset. I took a lot of good pictures. There were some boys who wanted to perform for us by jumping a good distance into some green water. Our local guide here made a comment about how back in the days of this city three wives was nothing and that nowadays one wife is too many.
The salespeople here were very aggressive. There were shops along the walls and children would try to start up conversations with you, get your name and then try to get you to commit to visiting their shops, saying it didn't cost anything to look. One boy, Samo, tried to get me to go to his shop (#5). He called me Mark Taylor after the captain of the Australian cricket team.
We had to take our shoes off and I had to wrap my lower body (since I was wearing shorts) in a wrap an attendant provided to enter Salaam Chistie, the white structure that contained the tomb of the holy man who prophesized 3 sons -- one of which was the father of man who built the Taj Mahal. The walls were meshed in a way that you could see outside. A popular practice was to tie a piece of string onto the mesh for good luck. An attendant was unravelling some string from a spool and handing out small sections of it that he tore off so that we could do the same. I decided against it expecting to be asked for some money, and motioned that I didn't want to participate. Others did. When our local guide came by and saw that I hadn't received any string, he told the attendant to give me some and the attendant refused. That was fine with me.
Outside there were goats on the stairs and bee(?) hives hanging in the vaulted gateways high overhead. We passed another gauntlet of sellers of jewelry and assorted knick-knacks (or dust collectors as I like to call them). Then, we were off to Agra. It was hot even after the sun went down. The ride was pretty wild in the dark. Sometimes the oncoming headlights would be very bright, sometimes they wouldn't even be there. We were jostled around a bit on the bumpy road as we maneuvered around people, cattle and whatever else was on the road.
Up until this point I was pretty amazed at how well traffic seemed to move. The streets would be crowded with all manner of vehicles and animals, but somehow the traffic seemed to move better if not faster than traffic at home. It reminded me of red blood cells in capillaries. When we finally reached Agra, we found ourselves stuck in a traffic jam where we did not move for some time and our flow was much more like the stop-and-go of bad traffic at home.
We saw a wedding procession. Men carried what looked like 4 white potted neon lights in front of the groom who was on a white horse.
When we arrived at the Hotel Amar, I called Sara as soon as I got to our room -- #513. It took some effort, but I was able to convince the staff that I could call AT&T USA Direct from my room. It was up to them to make it possible. Rachel came by while Jerry was in the bathroom, and I was on the phone to have us sign a birthday card for Marc.
We talked for about 30 minutes, and by the time I came down to the hotel restaurant with the card, the only seat I saw open with our group was at a table with Marissa and Carolyn. I sat with them, and we talked about the differences in health care between our countries.
As usual, service took a long time which really bothered me this time since I had hopes of joining another table after our meal. I had water and chicken fried rice for 97 Rs. Getting the bill sorted out and everyone getting their correct change took some work, but we got worked out.
I joined the others in the hotel bar after dinner. Rachel told us Hans hadn't been happy with his bill at dinner in Sariska, so he made 'corrections' to their menu so that the items cost what he thought they should. He submitted the menu with a bill to the hotel for 2400 Rs -- the amount he felt he should be paid at the rate of pay he is used to back home. The staff had asked Rachel about it. When we left Sariska, the key to his room couldn't be found. Rachel entered his room and found that the folder full of envelopes and stationery had been ripped to pieces. In Agra, Hans had asked to have his own room. Rachel explained to him that he would have to pay an extra charge for that if they even had an extra room available. He told her that he wasn't asking so much for himself -- it was for Jergen's safety.
While we were in the bar, a man who claimed his name was Mark joined our conversation. He said he was from Canada and that he was on a honeymoon that would take him all over the world. He said he made some good investments and that his wife is a television producer. He entertained us with some magic tricks. I thought he was kind of weird and didn't trust him very much -- perhaps it's just the effect of growing up in Chicago, but his story sounded a bit strange.
I took the opportunity to take notes on the day's events. It was a running joke that I was taking notes on everyone else.
After some people left, we played Rachel's KFM (Kill, **** and Marry) game. Someone would pick three members of the opposite *** and you had to choose one to kill, one to **** and one to marry. Marissa went first. Then she picked names for Rachel. Given the new Mark, Marc and myself as choices, Rachel chose to kill Mark (since she didn't know him), **** Marc since he was already married) and marry me (since I was still available). At least those were the reasons she gave. After that, we decided not to pick people who were in the room.
After the bar closed, we ended up in Rachel's room. We were down to Rachel, Marissa, Carolyn, Maritsa, Paul, Jergen, myself and the new Mark which was strange for a guy who was supposed to be on his honeymoon. We continued to play KFM. Paul ****ed Antje and married Lisa. I killed Rita, ****ed Sue and married Carol, but only because I didn't have the option of killing them all. Jergen killed Lisa, ****ed Antje and married Claudia.
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After a while, the new Mark left. Jergen, Paul, Maritsa and I talked while Rachel, Marissa and Carolyn talked in another part of Rachel's room. I left around 1:30 AM to get some sleep since I planned to be up for a trip to the Taj Mahal before dawn. Jerry got up for a bit after I came in.
We got up around 5:15 AM and met Claudia, Francesco, Marissa and Carolyn in the lobby at 5:30 AM. |
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