Agra and the Taj Mahal

December 20 Delhi-Agra-Jaipur
Still sans baggage, our strungout quartet boarded the train to Agra at 6 a.m., somethings borrowed, somethings blue. Red sun rising caught Kalli's attention. we avoided the tea an watered down juice -- day 3 in India and all still healthy. Agra, we meet our driver Arif, helpful if somewhat pushy about taking us to his favorite shopping stores. After a day in authentic working Delhi with Nigel, the relentless selling of India begins to wear on us--inlaid marble store, (more on The Marble Salesman later), the gem store, the cloth store. The workers deforming their fingers carving marble is horrific, the contrast to the final intricate beauty surreal.
THE TAJ. i had no idea I could still be impressed by a building. The Taj appears thru the main archway as an object floating in mist. Some fog remained to add the effect of looking through muslin. We clear the arch and there it is and you can't believe it. It sparkles for us, the sky turns blue, it fills up and we leave.

The Red Fort is next. And the fateful story of Shah Jahan, who envisioned, and had built, the Taj

Xmas Eve New Delhi

Arrived back in Delhi last night after 5 hour train ride from Jaipur where we have been for past three days. As our train arrived , we were invaded by men in turbans and Indian style pyjamas (the word started here) roaming the aisle and shouting-- the Delhi version of porters looking for customers. Ben, Dana and Bob's driver -- was right at our train door and whisked us --if whisked is ever the right word for moving through the crowds here -- to our home. Xmas party across the street went til all hours with Indian band playing Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka dot bikini, La Bamba and bad disco. What better proof globalization is going too far.

3 OF 4 BAGS HAVE ARRIVED! More exciting than Beaujolais est 'arrive! Chocolate capitol totally destroyed but Margo's ambition is appreciated.

Dana and I met with the Indian Minister for Science and Technology Kamil Sibal and Anjali Nuyyar from IAVI for an hour thanks to the good work of anjali and seth Berkley the head of IAVI. Excellent discussion, someone who is actually making things happen to improve life here -- would some of our "ministers" cared as much about actually doing something.

Then on to tennis with Bob and Dana's son Robert, Kalli, Reid, Margo and Bob and others who showed up at the American Embassy. Beautiful weather and a great break from the tension of travel and trying to cross the street in Jaipur. more on Jaipur later in the blog. Now preparing to eat drink and make merry.

Merry Xmas to all our friends and family. Reid has enabled comments, so send some back!

Day 5 (for us, I think)

Two days ago we left Delhi at 430am and went to the train station where we took a 2 hour ride to Agra. The train station itself is quite interesting seeing all kinds of people from Sihk men in tailored suits to poor women dressed in old saris. Once in Agra we went immediately to the Taj Mahal to avoid the rush. They do not allow any polluting vehicles or industries near it to preserve the white marble.It really is a huge magnificent creation with tons of intricate marble inlays. Our knowledgeable but rather pushy driver took us next to a marble inlay workshop after we ate at a huge American hotel just outside of the taj. The workshop salesman showed us how all the semi-precious stones are cut with hand wheels so there "are no gaps" when set into the carved out white marble. He then brought us into his huge showroom where he had servants waiting in the wings to bring drinks or turn off the lights to show the brilliance. We felt bad that we didn't buy anything if only because he knew how to make a sale so well!

Before we left Agra we visited a couple more shops and also had a tour of the Agra Fort given by one of the locals. It is a huge fort built by the Shah emperor for his three wives (one each Hindu, Muslim and Buddist I believe) and 365 harem! It has two defensive walls and a moat in addition to a huge garden, architecture drawn from all religions (there are stars of David over one entryway) and an "air-conditioned" room built with plaster of Paris with water cooled piping. After our extremely long day we took a 4 hour train ride to Jaipur where we are now.

Yesterday I was not feeling very well and slept most of the day while the rest of the family went clothes shopping at the market and befriended one of the shopkeepers. Today I am feeling much better but my dad has fallen sick pretty badly (which leaves me way too much time to write this).

Although we have been staying in clean places with mostly American and British travellers we go through a lot of very filthy streets and markets and we must still make sure all our food is cooked well, water is either boiled or bottled, and we wash our hands frequently.

--Reid

(P.s. This is via Blackberry but we'll upload some more pictures soon.)

Delhi day one

Nigel Hankin is an 87 year old Englishman who stopped here when the dropping of the bomb spared him being posed to Burma in 1945. He has been here ever since. For the past 40 years, 6 days a week he has given the most sought after tour of "working Delhi." And i can see why. We began at the home of Indira Ghandi which is now a museum. A crystal walk way marks her last steps before her guards shot her. We went from there to a Sikh temple, a 14th century well, the government buildings of New Delhi designed by Lutyens and then to a cremation site on the Ganges -- see photo of a body being sprayed with water from the Ganges -- the river is too filthy to go stand in or dunk a body. At least half a dozen funeral pyres were going during our stop. Bodies are burned within two hours of death.

After lunch we wandered -- Nigel knew where HE was going -- through the old Delhi working bazaar, all wholesale stand for everything from chemicals to nuts and spices and wedding dresses and silver. We walked through shops separated by one person width on a meandering path that led thru time back to another century. Men carrying enormous sacks of whatever you can think of on their backs and heads, pushing carts piles 6 feet high with sacks of tea and grain and rice. We were unnoticed mainly except for a young child who followed Kalli, w were the only white people we saw . Nigel knew all the shopkeepers, would stop by one, grab a handful of something out of a sack and tell us -- this is "lac" for making lacquer, this is myrrh, this is shellac, you name it. We all coughed and choked --along with the natives --in the spice alleys. We saw women only in the wedding alley, trying on gowns.
Earlier we stopped in the abandoned grounds where George V of England had come to announce the new capital would be Delhi. His statue was removed from New Delhi to this now empty field after India's independence -- all well described in William Dalrymple"s "City of Djinns."It was a great lecture from Nigel complete with a picture of the English planning committee roaming around delhi on an elephant looking for a place to build the new city.

We ended the day with another great meal from Bob and Dana's cook Rahjan and head out tommorow at 6 a.m. on the train to Agra. Packing will be easy since our 3 bags are lost with a thousand others (not making that up) somewhere in British Airways' baggage claims. But if it were not for Jan Nowak of British Airways -- may her numbers increase -- we would not have made it here at all after we missed our connection in London due to our plane being 2 hours delayed leaving Washington after a truck hit the wing!

three hours later

Desperately seeking seats on tonights flight. Nothing in airline world is true for more than fifteen minutes. At least I'm not as bad off as the woman next to me trying to get to lagos thru addis abbaba. Now THAT'S a problem

London

We are currently standing in line at London Heathrow Airport waiting in line for security...again so I figured I'd post my first Blagpost from dad's Blackberry because what else am I going to do?!

Instead of leaving Dulles at 21:55 as we were supposed to, some idiot managed to run into the wing of our 747 with a truck WHO RUNS INTO PLANES!!!!!

Anyway that meant we did't leave until after midnight which put us in at noon London time (6:45 flight time wasn't bad,) just in time for our 1140 connection to Delhi NOT.

So here we are trying to catch another flight...looks like we'll be hanging out in or around LHR for ohhh at least eight hours! The joy or modern air travel!

--Reid

The India Blog

We have enough medicine for the whole plane. We have Rupees. We have plans and trains and planes and cars and auto rickshaws, hotels and houseboats and absolutely no idea of what we're about to get into. The definition of India.