Day 49 - India day 2

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

We woke up today around 7:30am for some breakfast before going to Agra. The breakfast was included in the price we paid. However, a traditional breakfast in Northern India consists of bread or toast with jam and coffee or black tea. Nothing filling at all. If you want an American breakfast (eggs, toast, cereal, juice) you have to ask for an American breakfast. Really, that’s what they call it. Our driver met us in the hotel lobby promptly at 8am when we left for Agra. The plan was to stop at a few temples on our way to Agra, then check into our hotel, do a little tour around Agra, then go to the Taj Mahal tomorrow morning.

On a side note, the official language of India is Hindi, but a large majority of people speak English. The signs are most often written in English but if they are written in Hindi (sanscript I think?) there will be an English translation underneath it. So the language barrier was hardly visible to us most of the time. Taxi’s, rickshaws, and our contract diver all spoke English, although it wasn’t always good English. There are 24 languages that are commonly spoken throughout India, but most everyone speaks Hindi as well. Also, it is part of the Hindi culture that you’re not suppose to wear your shoes on places of worship. So every temple that we went to we had to take off our shoes and check them into a little locker. Also, many places didn’t allow photography inside the temple.

The first temple we stopped at was a beautiful and huge. It was probably the first place that I’ve seen multiple swastikas and stars of David used on the same building. The two symbols were around much longer than the Nazi’s. I can’t remember the name of this place, but I’ll try to find out. It’s pretty famous so I should be able to find it.

Right outside of the temple we saw a snake charmer with a cobra. I’m pretty sure the cobra has had it’s fangs taken out because he snipped at the guy holding him at first. I wasn’t about to hold the basket that the snake was it, but David did for about 30 seconds, then the guy playing the music asked for 700 Rupees, which is an absolutely ridiculous price so he ended up not giving him anything. It was pretty funny if you were there.

Our driver is a little crazy. I told you before about the excessive, unnecessary honking that everyone does, and maybe it’s just because we were with our driver for so long, but if he hasn’t honked his horn for a while, like 5 minutes, he will just honk it for no apparent reason. This is no joke, he did it more than once! Good thing I never had a headache while we were in India because all of the honking probably would have made my head explode.

Our next stop was at Humayun’s Tomb, which dates back to 1565-1572AD. This was a huge area, with many different tombs scattered around the area, but Humayun was the most famous one, so he had the biggest tomb. Some of the others near his tomb were Isa Khan’s Tomb and Barber’s Tomb. Here’s what one of the signs by Humayun’s tomb read:

“Hamida Banu Begum, his trieving widow, build Emperor Humayun’s mausoleum. Precursor to the Taj Mahal, it stands on a platform of 12000m squared and reaches a height of 42 meters. The earliest examples of Persian influence in India Architecture, the tomb has within it over 100 graves, earning it the name, ‘Dormitory of the Mughals’. Built of rubble masonry, the structure is the first to use red sandstone and white marble in such great quantities. The small canopies on the terrace were originally covered in glazed blue tiles, and the brass final over the white marble dome is itself 6meters high.”

After Humayun’s tomb (which was awesome) we got back on the road to Agra.
So I mentioned before that our driver was a little crazy. Well shortly after we got going again we stopped to get some gas. After our driver filled the tank he drove over to fill up with some air. There was clearly a line of cars for people to get air, but that didn’t seem to bother him and he cut right in line to be the next person. This caused a HUGE controversy with the next person in line who he cut in front of. So both get out of the car and are arguing with the guys working the air pump. This goes on for quite a while. At one point the guy who he cut in front of came up to me since I was sitting in the front passengers seat, and just went off. The whole conversation they were having before and when he was talking to me was in a different language, most likely Hindi. I just told the guy ‘’I have no idea what you’re saying to me in whatever language you’re talking in.’’ then he looked at me weird and went back to arguing with our driver in front of the car. I’ve got some pictures, it’s great. But seriously, this went on for like 20 minutes before our driver came back into the car and we drove off, without filling the tires with air. I asked him what the problem was back at the station and he said that the other car was parked so he went in front of him. What the heck? Talk about being stubborn, just let the guy that you budged in front of go, and then get air! By the time they were done arguing about seemingly nothing both of them and the rest of the cars behind them could have filled with air. It just doesn’t make sense to me why our driver was arguing. Whatever I guess.

Another side note, as I said before 1 billion people is A LOT of people. It’s hard to find work for 1 billion people within a country, especially a developing country. Each pump at the gas station probably had 3-4 people working it, then there were 3 more guys working the air pump, then I’m sure there were guys inside the gas station working. There are just so many people that they get random jobs. Every public restroom that I went into there was someone there to hand me a towel after I washed my hands. There was always someone to open the door when walking into a restaurant/business/hotel. I have no idea how much they get paid, but it can’t be too much.

I hope I don’t forget what side of the road is the right side once I get back to the states. After being in South Africa, Mauritius, and India I’m used to the driver being in the right seat and driving on the left side of the road. I have no idea how it is in the rest of the countries that we’re going to, but it’s weird that I’m used to it now.

I forget if I mentioned this before or not, but cows are sacred across all of India. If a person dies after getting it by a vehicle and a cow dies after getting hit by a vehicles, the cow will get much more attention than the person. It would be seen as a huge tragedy. Since they are sacred, they roam freely throughout India. You’ll see many on the side of the roads and occasionally have to slow/stop your vehicle to allow one or two to cross the street. These are big cows with big horns. You wouldn’t want to hit one anyway, but it’s different to see them just chillin on the side of the roads and crossing the roads.

Camels, oxen, donkeys, cows are all used to haul trailers. I saw a few horses, but definitely not as many as the rest of them. There are also a lot of monkeys that roam around the cities freely. Like the other countries we’ve been to, there are also a lot of stray dogs roaming the streets. It’s hard to stay away from them since I love dogs so much, especially the puppies, but I’m not about to get rabies. On the first day when we were in our rickshaw David pointed out a Bentley, about 5 seconds later I pointed out 2 oxen. I’m not sure where else in the world you could ever witness that. They told us in global studies that the distribution of wealth in India is better than in the US. However, the GDP is MUCH lower in India. So I think the reason that the distribution of wealth is so much better in India is just because there are so many people living in poverty. In 2002, poverty was at 25% of the population.
India is easily the most different from US culture that we’ve been to. There aren’t very many big shops or industries. The biggest business that I’m aware of is probably Vodacom, their phone and internet provider. Other than that there are TONS of little shops selling about anything that you can think of from crafts, clothing, electronics, fruits, vegetables, fried food and everything else.

Anyway, our next stop was at a place called Jaigurudev Temple. It was a big, beautiful temple that was made of white marble, just like the Taj Mahal. It even looked like a miniature Taj in some respects. Well not really, but kind of. It was a temple, and not a tomb so there was a huge area for people to pray. Another beautiful stop. There were also signs inside the temple, where people can put in donations, that said ‘’Persons taking meat, fish, eggs, and wine are requested NOT to put in money.’’

We finally made it to Agra. It took about 4-5 hours with all of the stops along the way.
Once we got to Agra we picked up our guide, who spoke GREAT English, which was a nice relief since our driver barely spoke any. Our first stop in Agra was the Red Fort, a big army fort also called Agra Fort. We just looked at it from the outside since it cost money to get in and our guide said it really wasn’t worth it since we were crunched on time. It was pretty sweet from the outside. There’s also some holding cells for prisoners and it’s still occupied by the Indian Army.
Next our guide knew of this great spot that we could go in the garden behind the Taj Mahal to get our first view of it. The garden was beautiful, and the view from the back of the Taj Mahal was amazing. The beginnings of the Black Taj Mahal could also be seen and even stood on there. The Taj is absolutely amazing from every angle.

The Taj Mahal took 20,000 people and 22 years to build. The descendants who built the Taj are the only ones who are allowed to work at the Taj Mahal today. They are the only people who can work in the gardens, clean, and benefit from the money that it brings in.

After enjoying the view we headed to a marble store. The people who hand crafted the marble art there were also descendants of the original family. They put together some pretty amazing stuff. We were able to see them actually carving and crafting the artwork seen in the store. The main thing that they sold in the store was table tops, but they also had other marble artwork that was pretty amazing. Everything was relatively expensive though, like minimum $250USD for a table top. Way out of my price range. I did buy a marble carving of Ganasha though.
After visiting the store we were finally able to go to a restaurant for some food. Our first taste of some authentic Northern India food. I really liked it, but it wasn’t as spicy as I was expecting. After getting some food in our stomach we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep. We have to get up at 6am to see the sunrise at the Taj Mahal.