We woke to the sounds of chaiwalas going up and down the aisles of the train. Our ETA in Delhi was just after 11:00am, and after a little check on my GPS, it looked like we were making great progress. The trip from Jaisalmer was a whopping 950km. The entire train system in India is actually gigantic - the government company that runs the system is the largest employer of people in the world - and it has a fairly good reputation for delivering "close to" on time services (they even have an online database where you can check on time arrival statistics for every train).
We were almost exactly on time when we got to Old Delhi station. As soon as we got out of our train, we were me by our driver, Uday. I'd arranged a driver with DIPT, a well reviewed custom driver and tour company run by a guy named Pawan. Pawan had been extremely responsive and helpful coming up with a good itinerary for our planned trip from the Delhi train station, to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and other sites, then back to Delhi the next day in preparation for an early flight to Kathmandu on Tuesday morning.
We immediately took to Uday. He was about 6'3", very professional and calm, with a dry sense of humour that came out the more we talked.
From '97, Beth and I had a pretty negative view of Delhi. We did not have the best experience - mostly due to staying in cheap, crappy accommodation which is never good in a big city, much less a large Indian city. I have to say, within fifteen minutes of starting our drive through and beyond Delhi, I was completely turned around. Delhi is a huge city: it has three world heritage sites, 40,000 parks, 25 million people or so, and is the seat of the National government. The old city and new city are totally different, with New Delhi reflecting a more modern, British designed street system with thousands of large trees shading the wide boulevards. Old Delhi is the overcrowded, hodge podge you would expect of most large Indian cities.
When we got to the new expressway the runs from South Delhi to Agra, we were suddenly in the middle of farm country - it looked like we were on the 401 between Brantford and London. Because it was a private, toll road, the highway was empty.
Uday talked and talked - not incessantly in an annoying way - he was very engaging and more than happy to talk about anything. One story he brought up that we found fascinating was how he got married. He was 25 when his sister came to him and said she'd found a girl for him. He told her he wasn't interested - he felt he needed a couple of more years of work to establish himself. His sister said she had to humour the girl's family, and invited them over for the first step in the arranged marriage process - the interview of the man. So they all came over (the girl's family, not the girl herself!) to meet Uday, and get to know him with a series of grilling questions.
Uday thought that was that. Unbeknownst to him, his brothers and sister went to do the same process with the girl shortly thereafter (these interviews can be brutal... We later heard of people asking the prospective bride to sing, and to do a catwalk for them to check out her legs (and ass presumably?)). His sister later called him and said "we made a contract with the girl's family, so you're getting married!". What? There were many fights and arguments after that, Uday explained.
Protests aside, Uday was to be married. Two months later, the process started with a small wedding party at his house (no bride yet) where they finalized all of the legal paperwork. Six days later (it has to coincide with something in the Hindu calendar) they would have the ring ceremony where he was finally able to lay eyes on his new wife. He said it was very awkward and uncomfortable.... But yada, yada, yada, and eight years and one child later, he is very happily married (yes, I just yada yada'ed eight years of marriage and one kid). He laughs about it now, but I'm sure it was not fun at the time.
We had a ton of questions, but it all boiled down to this: I used to always look at it from the bride and groom's perspective and think it would suck to not know who you were going to marry (I still do!) but I never thought about the amount of pressure on the "suitor managers" (in Uday's case his sister and two brothers). In a way, the bride and groom just have to go along with everything, but the team choosing and interviewing prospects has a ton of pressure on their shoulders - they're responsible for choosing a mate for their friend/brother/sister and they will hear about it for years to come - that's pressure!
It was a fun and very informative drive.
Uday got calls from contacts in Agra that things were pretty packed on the roads. Apparently, the Ganesha festival that we saw in Mumbai was really starting to become a big thing in Agra. This was Sunday, the last day of the festival, and it wasn't long before we were crawling along the streets of outer Agra, watching the hilarity outside. There were dozens of trucks filled with twenty or more (mostly) men who were in the mood to party. Most were covered with blue, pink or yellow die powder that they were throwing all over the place. It was really like watching a bit of a train wreck outside the windows of our cool, clean private car.
Agra is a bit fucking crazy... I can't describe it any other way. At any time out the window we could see cows, goats, monkeys and dogs, in the streets with motos, cars, Tuk tuks, truk truks, buses, trucks and tractors, weaving in and out of people walking amongst the traffic selling books, chips, crafts, magic tricks and window washing all surrounded on both sides of the street with vendors, people working on repairing things, buildings built on top of other buildings in a haphazard way, and lost souls sitting watching the activity. If that sounds like a run-on sentence, it's because Agra is a giant run-on sentence - short, well constructed sentences just don't cover Agra. Add to all of that, the Ganesh festival activities.
We got to our hotel at around four thirty, and since our plan was to see the Taj across the river for sunset, we had twenty minutes to freshen up. It was pretty sweet when Abby and I got in our room and saw how nice it was....
Well, we must be pretty experienced travellers by now, because within twenty minutes we were all showered and changed and downstairs meeting our local guide, Rahul. I'd actually forgotten that our package from DIPT included meals, entry fees and a local guide, so this was continuing to look good.
The drive back through the city and across the bridge to the other side of the river was.....amazing. Honestly, it was like being in a parade slowly moving through the movie "Brazil" - it was so weird, yet so wonderful. The people were really jacked up and having a lot of fun. We were playing the part of the celebrities sitting inside the car with doors locked and windows up. I took a short sample video, but this was really just the tip of the iceberg.
Eventually, we did make it across the river and over to the park that was directly across the Yamuna River to the Taj Mahal. I got chills when I first saw it again, even at a distance. It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - it's one of those things that looks amazing in photos but somehow pictures do not do it justice.... Does that even make sense?
The Taj is completely symmetrical, so catching it at sunset across the river really shows it in a nice light that you can't see from the front side.
We were standing on the footings for the building that was never built - the exact copy of the Taj Mahal was to be made out of black marble / onyx on this site, but it never materialized. We made sure not to go ahead the deep pit.....
The other aspect of seeing the Taj from that side was so you could see the full structure, including the beautiful, huge, red stone and marble buildings that usually end up as foot notes that lie on either side of the main building. The Taj is so huge that when you're facing it from the front, you can't actually get a picture to fit those two buildings together with the Taj (see above).
The river was dry so it was half filled with willows that shone brightly in the setting sun. The girls were charged.... Just pumped!
After the sun set, we made our way back into town to dinner. We went to a buffet place that catered mostly to tourists but was excellent. The guides and drivers are given free meals for bringing the tourists here but to me they served as judges of good food - and they were all eating heartily. The food was actually very good.
We have an early morning tomorrow - up for sunrise at the Taj Mahal.... We can't wait!
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