Tag Archives: agra

Rough times in Amritsar.

India, , , , , ,

India has officially given us a lot to cope with. Steve came down with some sort of head cold  in addition to food poisoning, and now I’ve caught his cold too. We’re both curled up in the hotel, hacking and coughing and drinking as much water as we can.

Last night, we made a trip out for Domino’s Pizza (which oddly has tables and chairs here, instead of simply being a take-out joint) and tonight, sandwiches at Subway. Indian food is tasty, but all that dal makhani and chana masala is all cooked to high heaven, no minerals and vitamins left to speak of! It was such a relief to have raw vegetables. I also bought some oranges and bananas, and we’re going to try to recuperate as best as we can. Meanwhile, I can’t help but think that it’s going to be much better when we leave northern India, and possibly the entire country.

We’ve only been able to make a fleeting nighttime visit to the Golden Temple (which was quite nice) and not yet to the Pakistani border closing ceremony at Wagah, but maybe tomorrow or the day after when we feel better. Here, have a video about driving in Agra. Bonus: pig in the road!

Also, YouTube, don’t make me laugh. Of course this video is shaky.

More to come,
Connie

“A teardrop on the cheek of time.”

India, , , , ,
“A teardrop on the cheek of time.”

Love inspires grand monuments and grand statements. Here, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore was waxing poetic about the beauty of the Taj Mahal. I’ve read this quote countless times in guidebooks and introductions, and you know, that’s quite a statement. When we planned to visit India, I knew that we needed to go see the Taj. Not quite because I was dying to make the trip to Agra, but more because I knew we would regret visiting India and not seeing it in person.

The Preparation
Knowing it would be a difficult trip to plan, we made no other plans for our five days in Delhi. After some online research, I was overwhelmed by the logistics of taking a train to Agra and transportation from there to each of the sights in the city, so I suggested to Steve we try a tour group. We checked out a few places on the Main Bazaar that advertised day-trips to Agra. One place suggested a bus trip (leaving at 6 am, coming back at 11:30 pm) for 500 rupees a person, which sounded a little too cheap to be good (less than $10 USD per person, really?).

We also stopped by the travel desk at our hotel to inquire, and they suggested we hire their car and driver to visit three different sights in Agra, which would be more of a 12-hour journey for approximately 6000 rupees ($100 USD). We went back to do more research, but barely an hour later, the travel desk called our room to let us know there were two other travelers also hoping to go to the Taj tomorrow, so the price was just halved the price to 1500 rupees per person. After a hurried conference, Steve and I decided to go along with this unexpected opportunity.

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