November 25, Agra

Greetings from Shah Jahan's masterpiece creations - the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Fatehpur Sikri. We arrived Thursday and walked from the train station to the hotel (about 6K) with moto and auto rickshaws haggling the entire way - "hello, only 30 rupies", "hello, only 20 rupies", down to 5 and then zero though I think he would mandate a tip!

Thursday we walked around the Red Fort which was really impressive and gave distant views of the Taj. Building on the fort began in 1565. The fort is 20 meters high and 2.5 km around. It was really amazing. Monkeys everywhere, and the President of China - Hu Jintao - and wife Liu Yongqing - were there.

Friday is the muslim holy day which means that the Taj tomb was closed. So instead, we scouted out a hotel pool to sneak into. We got into the Howard Park Plaza pool which was okay, but once the flies found us we decided to walk around instead and found McDonalds - yum ice cream and french fries!

Afterward we went to buy our train tickets to Jaipur which turned out to be a scene. Liz agreed to hold an Indian woman's space in line while she went to the restroom and a guy would not honor it. He ended up snapping his end in front of Liz's face telling her to shut up, so she did the same back, only towering above him made the noise and motion lounder which drew a lot of attention. He then told her more forcefully to be shut up, so Jeff jumped in and told him to be quiet himself. A few people had to grab the short, annoying, sexist, Indian guy back and then he muttered - "this isn't your country." Liz laughed saying "yeah, it sure isn't." Jeff said, "obviously, you have no respect for women." Drama - it's very obvious that women are 2nd class citizens here and Liz gets leered at by pervy men all the time. Yuck! After awhile our patience snaps and we can't help but tell them their attitudes suck! Most of the time our inner peace is stronger and we ignore it - like ignoring incessant calls of beggars and children - "hello, money..., hello, chocolate... hello, school pen" - and rickshaw drivers. We are definitely not in America! Ha!

Today we went to see the Taj which was great. We got there by 7 AM before the crowds and saw the sun coming up on the large marble structure. Liz wore her saree which the women thought looked really nice. Afterward we went to Fatehpur Sikri by bus which is 1.5 hours each way. It's where Shah Jahan built the perfect city; however there was no water supply so it was never used. There's also a mosque there and workers are still chipping away at stones because it still being worked on.

****Quote of the day****
Taj Mahal, by random tourist exiting the tomb
"Do you smell toe jam?"
No shoes are allowed inside the marble tomb, so unless you have shoe covers on, the toe jam is exposed. Gnarly!

We are now back at the hotel picking up our packs and are off to Jaipur. Our train leaves tonight at 5:45 PM and gets in at 10:30 PM. Hopefully finding a hotel won't be hard. Must run - Love Liz and Jeff