We pack up our stuffs and set the bags outside of the room to be taken to the bus and head down to breakfast. Barbara is interested in one of the sauces that is served on the breakfast buffet. I suggest she ask the guy tending the food. She smiles and replies with one of my favorite questions; "why not?" and heads off towards the guy. I watch as he smiles and calls up one of the chefs of the restaurant. They chat for a while and she comes back to the table. She got the ingredients for that sauce as well as telling him how much I enjoyed the chickpea curry from the day before. Seems he went back to the kitchen to see if they had any left for me. It's that good, my friends.
The distance is not very far from Delhi to Agra. But, the speed at which traffic travels keeps everything at a nice and slow pace (the speed limit for the bus is 40k/hr...roughly 25 mph). There do not seem to be any highways that are meant for high speed travel. There are scooters, tuk-tuks, buses, cars, people and cows on every street. I watched as buses stop near the median of an off ramp to let people off. Not in a 'breakdown lane' like we have; right in the lane itself.
Horns are a huge part of driving and the rules of the road here. They are not used for the same things we use them for. They are not 'watch it you almost hit me' horns. They are passing horns. They are get out of the way horns. Anytime a vehicle passes another vehicle, they honk the horn to let the guy they are passing know not to drift out of their current lane. Even though nobody actually uses lanes. I guess it's more like don't drift off of your current line. Our bus (who has the most pathetic sounding horn in India) uses the horn to tell slower traffic to get out of our way. Not many drivers seem to listen to us. Probably because our weak horn. Not manly at all.
For lunch we stop at, what I can only call a road-side tourist attraction. There's a restaurant with a couple of shops attached to it. Out front there is a guy dressed in traditional clothing with an old Indian instrument. As he plays it a small girl (also dressed in traditional clothing) dances and whirls around. I would post pictures of them, but taking pictures would require a tip to them. Across the parking lot a man plays a horn and lets loose his cobra. None of us approach as Shankar says that any interaction with him will also require a tip.
Speaking of tipping; It's pretty big here. Not much in the way of tips. But, it's everywhere. There is a bathroom attendant who will turn the faucet on and off for you, squeeze soap into your hands and provide you with something to dry your hands. For this, you pay him a tip of 10 rupees (about 20 cents). Those are the good bathrooms. The not so good bathrooms there is a guy who has pretty much claimed the bathroom as his own and will provide you napkins to dry your hands with (not a good material to use as it falls apart when making the attempt) and will provide you toilet paper if needed. Of course, this also costs you a tip of around 10 rupees. Tipping for meals is anywhere from eight to ten percent of the bill.
We stop off at a large tomb of Akbar, a Mohgul King. I believe it was the third mohgul king that is entombed here. His son, the fourth king, added to the tomb after his father passed away. A large, red sandstone tomb with walls, gardens and deer? Yes, a herd of deer live within the large gardens of the tomb.
Next stop, Agra itself. We begin discussing the plans for tomorrow and our visit to the Taj Mahal. Shankar tells the bus that it would be better to sleep in a little and to go at 8am instead of sunrise. He reasons that, in his experience, the Taj is beautiful no matter what time of day it is. In the morning the line to get in can be long....very long. It could take us over an hour and a half to get through security at that time of the day. Therefore, we should not try for a sunrise tour. Is that OK with everyone. Many of the people seem to agree with the idea. Many...not all. Barbara and I are not thrilled with this. A family of three begin putting up a small fuss about being there at sunrise. He quiets them down. Later I find out he was using circular illogic to make his point. Every time they said they wanted to be there at sunrise he would respond with, they don't open the gates until sunrise. So, it's no good to be there that early. Yes, we understand that we will miss the actual sunrise, but, we want to see the light change across the Taj as it makes its way up. Every guidebook ever written about the area says to be there at sunrise or sunset for the most amazing views. His response reverted back to they don't open the gate until sunrise. Then they have to go through security which could take some time. They would miss the sunrise. Yes, we understand that. OK, then we go later in the day. Round and round they went. They finally acquiesce.
However, he had only fought a battle. Not the war. He had yet to square off with a real opponent; my wife. She started in on him nicely. No point in being rude. Just as the police pulls his firearm as a last resort, my wife holds the platinum plated bitch card in reserve. She was not going to back down. I tried to compromise by saying that we would take a taxi over there by ourselves and meet them there when they got there. The fool did not see the potential cease fire and told us that we all have to go at the same time, due to some sort of tour restriction. I sat back in my seat and could see that Barbara had been polishing the shine on that bitch card of hers in those few moments. Several minutes later, he announces to the bus that we would be leaving the hotel before sunrise so that we could have a sunrise tour of the Taj. Exactly like the tour says, I thought to myself.
Combat takes it's toll upon the participants. Barbara was pretty upset when we arrived at the hotel. On top of squaring off with our tour guide, we were pretty sure we had upset some of the other travellers by having them be on the bus at 5:30am. We decided that we would just order room service. The hotel was a dump. I am sure that it was a nice place compared to many of the other establishments. But, it was not what I had in mind as a nice hotel. It was nowhere near what we had come to expect from Friendly Planet. Ordering room service was a bad idea. I think that the only decision we could have made to make it worse was to drink the local water...
We went to bed early (and a little hungry) but a bit excited to travel the the Taj Mahal tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment