Beethoven In Trance - Episode 54

Day 7 we woke up early becuase we had a tour scheduled. We had some breakfast, a fried pancake with potato filling, and we loved it. Our friend's father even gave us some local healthy specialty to try. It was some form of paste in a bottle that looks like calcuim supplement here in US, and it's enhanced with gold. Yes, gold. The local swear by its health benefit. The paste tastes fruity, and I don't mind the taste at all.

After the breakfast, we set off to our tour. It was a bus tour around the city Delhi, and the bus was half full. There are total 3 pair, 6 international travellers on the bus. Two French ladies, another pair of one Irish guy and English girl. The rest was all Indian. The tour started with some temple, we had to deposit our shoes before we can walk in (a common practice in our trip). The temple was nice and clean (comparing to outside of the temple). When we left to get the shoes, the guard officer showed me a brochure about the Indian temple and its history and symbols showing inside. It looks as a promotional material, and I was gladly to accept it. He then asked me for money, well, well, well, there was always a catch. I asked him how much and he told me to give him any amount I wanted. Well, I laughed and gave the brochure back to him. I think the brochure is helpful to promote Hindu religion but the charge from the guard made me turn away from getting to know more, too bad. We then went to another site where there was a very tall tower, I forgot the name. The tickets were 500 rupee for both, plus 25 rupee for video taping. It was expensive for 30 minutes of visit.

We then went to a lotus temple, a temple that built like a lotus. Before we could go to lunch, we 'conveniently' stopped in the middle of nowhere by a 'government authorized or operated' shop for some indian specialty. We walked around and saw a Taj Mahal miniature displaying on the counter, I tried to pick it up and the poles around the Taj Mahal immediately broke off as soon as I touched it. The person over the counter said it was ok. Well, great, I ain't gonna buy that. My wife wanted to get one for her coworkers and asked the guy over the counter how much it was. She asked couple times and no one answered her, and they were not like busy or anything either. My wife eventually gave up and walked out the door. Got back to the bus, we were the first group coming back from the shopping. Next arrived the Irish guy and British girl. After about 30 minutes, everybody came back except the guide and two French ladies. After one hour, French ladies came back with their purchases and said to the bus 'sorry, we swear we won't do that again'. Well, that was perfectly ok for the guide because he just got a good kick back.

We arrived another 'government operation' for lunch. It was a busy place, not fancy, a lot of locals. Menu was simple as well. I was told the place has 'vegie chow mein' when I booked the tour, so I was looking for the dish. We were also happy to see some familiar names on the menu as we just had them the day before with our friend. We order one noodle, one dosa and one bottle of water. The noodles has 'wok hei', and the dosa was ok.

We were taken to Delhi Fort, Gandhi's Museum and his tomb, and Humayum's Tomb in the afternoon. We skipped the Delhi Fort, because we thought it was similar to Agra Fort, and we didn't consider 50 minutes visit time worth 500 rupee tickets. We sat in the bus taking naps, and I took some pictures of the traffic.
I found the Gandhi's museum was very informative and a good place to visit. I hope the locals feel the same. We spent the rest of the afternoon rushing into tourist sites and rushing back to the bus. I feel we spent almost the same time on the bus and off the bus. There just wasn't enough time for us to really appreciate the places we visited.

We finished the tour around 6pm, and our friend was calling us to go to a relative's birthday party. Since her father and brother woudn't go, we had to say goodbye to them before we took off (because we would go directly to the airport after the party). We loaded the car with our luggage and said good bye. Come to think of it, we will miss them.

The birthday party was for the daughter of one of our friend's sister. Her sister's house was well decorated and spacious, like a nice apartment in Manhattan. We sat and did a little chit chat with the hosts before we started the dinner. Since the hosts were not vegetarian, we had lamb and chicken on the table. I was thrilled, I was very happy with the food, the our friend's hospitality. We took some pictures together after the dinner and I had a beer with the host before we set off to the airport. I was the the beer is a 'local beer', but the lable doesn't read like Hindu at all. It looks like an imported beer from Europe. Anyway, who cares.

We finally arrived at the airport with our friend and her mom. We said goodbye to them, and thanked them again for their generocity. We went through a series of check points in the airport and finally we got our boarding pass. The officer at the security check point requested every carry-on case to be tagged. Well, where could we find the tags then? I followed a Indian guy and he eventually opened one of the check-in counter draw searching for the tags, and he found it. We grabbed bunch, and went through the security check. We were asked if there was any nuts in our carry-on, oh yeah, cashew and almonds. The security let us pass, but I got the feeling that there might be some rules they didn't follow. But Thanks!

The waiting area was small, although the airport was modern looking. A large area was used for duty free shopping where we bought some sweets for coworkers back home. At the final boarding station, two guards really did their job asking us where we were from, where did we work, for how long, and why we visit India. Finally they let us pass.

The plane was not even half full. Everybody was comfortable. The lade sitting next to my wife noticed her henna, and started to chat and showed her own henna to my wife. She later went to the row in front of us to sleep becuase it was empty.

The dinner served on the plane is lamb curry. It was good, very meaty. After 16 hour or so's flight, we finally arrived. It was a good flight. And that was our final day of the trip.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 53

Day 6. By the time we got up and got ready, our friend was already up and we were introduced to her family. We met her parents and had a little chit chat. I got the chance to work in the kitchen and I had a good time. I video taped the whole thing of course. My friend made a sandwich with homemade cheese (similar to ricotta), and put it on the flat iron as we do with a pannini. We were stuffed before we could walk out the door. Day 6 agenda is shopping and schedule a tour around the city for the next day. We first went spice shopping. We went to the a local health institute which promotes good health by eating healthy food. First stop is the spice shop. All the spices are handgrounded at the back of the shop, and no photo was allowed. I was asked what to buy, and I basically told my friend I want all of the items on the list. So they gave me a pack of everything (later I found out I don't have enough tumeric and garam masala, but too late). After the spice shop we dropped by a juice mix booth. I asked my friend to told the guy working in the booth not to add any sugar in the juice, and I was told that sugar is not allowed by law in this institution. Wow, that's a first. While we were waiting for the juice to be mixed, we dropped by another store that sells heathly pills and oils. There were almond oil, local honey, etc. We had no luck with either of them because they were out of stock. Well, we went back to the juice stand and finish our juice. The juice was great, and I finished it quickly. I then was dared to try another juice, a cucumber and some other vegetable or fruit juice mix. Not even the locals had tried it. Well, bring it on. The juice came out green, like cucumber, and as a matter of fact, it tastes like cucumber as well. I finished it in no time as well (I did gave my wife a sip to taste). I like the juice, it was little tart, but not too strong, it was refreshing. I would order it again next time.

Next stop is a local market called Delhi Haat, we went to a travel agency (it was a 'government undertaking'), and booked the travel tour for the next day. We then bought the tickets (15 rupee) to go into the Delhi Haat. The place is a gathering of all the local specialty in one place. There are many textile from all over the country. Carpet, clothe, shawl, bags, sofa covers, you name it. The tout inside wasn't too bad. We bought a few shawls there without too much bargining and left the place.

Second stop is an open shopping bazzar. We did our bangels shopping there. This time, we bargained even less. We are pretty sure that we got ripped off badly there. By the time we finished circle around the place, it was lunch hour. We were all hungry, so our friend took us a reputable local restaurant for Southern Indian food. The restaurant was packe, and apperantly popular. There were both local and foreign visitors coming in and out and there was a line outside of restaurant waiting. There were a few seats outside of the restaurant and one seat was opened up and I was just ready to take it, but there was another foreign visitor jumped into it before I did. That old guy even said 'the age beats the bueaty' or something like that. The only time people fighted me for a seat happened in Shanghai when I was a little kid. I've never experienced it in US since I came here and I felt a little 'back home' at that moment. I couldn't say that it was a good experience though. While we were waiting, there were a few kids begging for money and food. I ignored them, but my friend gave him some money, but the kid didn't want it because he wanted food, so my friend bought some snack from a store next door and gave it to him. He then started to fancy my water, and asked my friend for my water. My friend forwarded the message and I replied with a no. I reminded her that my middle name is 'mean'. After about half hour or so waiting, we went into the restaurant, and our friend started to introduced us to the food. We ordered a bunch of them, and most of them are pretty spicy. I finished all of them and I was happy.

Left the restaurant, we went back to shopping. We went to another underground shopping mall (we had one in Shanghai as well). The underground shopping plaza is more stocked towards hippie youngsters, we didn't find much that was attractive. We only bought some shirts that was quoted 650 rupee, but we bargained down to 200 rupee. At that moment we realized how much we could bargain, but that was too late.

Next stop we went to another open bazzar, where I found the best thing of the trip - an Indian wok, we also bought a stainless steel milk jar. We then bought a set of children's clothe for our neighbor's daughter, and few packs of cashew and almonds. By the time we were done, it was dark already, we called it a day and went back home. And I coudn't remember if we had dinner that day or not..... But that was our day 6. We went back, take shower, and had some water, and then met our friend's brother, then go to sleep I guess...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 52

We got up early as usual on Day 5. Today is the wedding day for our friend. We packed our bag and headed to our friend's home after waking her up by phone. After sitting around for a while at her home, we had our breakfast served. The food was wonderful and I was very happy about it. The wedding ceremony started at her home in the afternoon and we video taped the whole thing. I even helped with cooking something for the bride's father. The bride's father needed to fast on the wedding day as a tradition, and he could only eat milk and some nuts. I helped toasted the peanuts. Then one of the aunt mixed it into some milk mixture. The wedding ceremony wouldn't start till evening so we had some time to kill. We contacted the sister of our coworker and she came over to give us another package for us to bring back to US and she took us to a place for shopping. She dropped us off to a local clothing shop because I needed something appropriate for the wedding that evening. She couldn't accompany us that day because she was busy. After saying good bye to her, we went into the shop. I bought a set of India clothing, and went to the check out. Fortunately they accepted credit card. I asked the guy over the counter where I could get money exchange. He pointed me to a group of guys working in the store. I was then 'suggested' by them that I could just sit and they would bring me the person for exchanging money (or at least that was my understanding). I smelled something fishy (or just being paranoid), I insisted they give me direction for Thomas Cook. Then one guy jumped out and gave me some direction, and another guy came out and smashed him on the head. Hummmmmm.

We left the store and since we still have plenty of time till the wedding, we started to walk around and tried to find Thomas Cook. The area consists a few blocks of stores cramped together. We followed the direction that we got previously and were able to find any branch. My wife kept reminding me not to walk in the middle of the road (a habit that I developed in Agra). I then decided to go into a known bank branch (HSBC? forgot the name) to ask for help. The guard won't let me in because of the bag I carry. So I left my bag with my wife and walk inside by myself. I found a young lady in there and asked her for direction. She suggested 'Western Union' which was what our friend suggested and gave me some direction. We then followed the direction to some extent and found the most modern shopping mall in town. The officers at the door checked our bag before letting us in, we have started to get used to it. It's a shopping mall much like the western ones, pretty boring. We eventually found the Western Union, and it was a tiny little office with one guy sitting behind the counter. I called my friend again to confirm this IS the place, then walked in to exchange the money. We walked around the shopping mall a bit then finally decided to sit down in the McDonald's (yeah, it's everywhere). We had a Chicken Maharaj and Vegie Burger. The flavor of chicken maharaj is confusing and I didn't like it at all, actually I hated it. Vegie burger on the other hand has distinct indian flavor, and I liked it. Stuffed with junk food, we headed out of the store.

We wrote down our address on a piece of paper and started to look for a manual rickshaw to take us back. The first driver quote us 50 rupee, then 40. He must be drinking and we went for another one. Most of the drivers don't know the address in English which makes the 'hiring process' a bit difficult. Eventually one driver took the bid, and asked a street vendor to translate it. At that time my offer was 10 rupee, I showed him the address in one hand, and 10 rupee in another hand, and he said yes. We got on the 'bike', and he started to riding back. He didn't know any English and he didn't really know the address. He delivered us to a place close to the address, but not the address. We decided to walk back ourselves so we got off his 'bike', and gave him 10 rupee. He all of sudden started to ask for 15 rupee (which was an offer I made earlier before I hired him). I told him firmly that this was not the address, and I only agreed for 10 rupee. He didn't understand me, and I didn't understand him. I showed him again with the address in one hand and 10 rupee in another (like what I did before he said yes to our offer), and told him the he took us to the wrong address. We gave him the 10 rupee, and we started to walk. He followed us and shouting at us loud and angry. We ignored him and kept walking. I bet the whole block could hear him. We came across a group of young people on the way, and we asked him for direction, they could only tell us the general direction. We kept on walking and the driver kept on following. Very soon we saw a sign that we remembered seeing before and we were heading the right direction. The driver was very persistent, and kept on following us. We didn't think bringning him back to our friend's house was a great idea at that moment, so we went into the club that we went to for the engagement party three days ago. We stopped at the gate, and told the officer that the driver was bothering us. The driver followed us in and started to talk to the guard. I told the guard that I didn't understand what the driver was saying and appearantly the guard had no interest in involving in this matter. He let us in the club, and the driver was disappointed. He left finally. After we walked in the club, the guard stopped us again and told us that the gym opens from 5pm. Ok, we will keep that in mind!

We sat on the lawn under the evening sun for a while, relaxed. We headed back to our friend home to get ready for the party (to be honest I was afraid the driver would waited there, but fortunately he wasn't). Our friend's sister loaned Jessica a set of traditional clothe, and I put on my newly bought as well. We were ready and walked to the club again at night. We met four friends of groom waiting for the party to begin. They were from Germany. We chatted a little bit. The groom was busy with some ceremony very much like the one we just saw at bride's home. After waiting and waiting, the groom finally got on a horse and started to rode back to the dinner party site. There were a group of relatives and friends dancing around the horse and moving slowly to the party site. There were drummers trying to stop them moving and two groups would 'fight' on the road. Drum vs. Dance. There was a line of people on both sides of the groom carrying lights and some guys in front of the everybody setting off fireworks. It was rowdy. I was amazed how traffic was still open and cars were able to pass by the whole army of people.

The groom finally reached the gate, where a group of bride's sisters stopped him for getting in. The groom had to 'bribe' them to get in. Jessica was among them and shouting 'US dollar, US dollar'. Well, the groom surely would be broke if he paid US Dollar. Finally, the monther in law came out for help, grabbed him into the door.

By that time, most of the guests have arrived and started eating already. The party was on the lawn of the club, and it was open. Around lined up an army of cooks ready to serve you whatever you like. We met another friend of us from Delhi at the party and we started to catch up. We then went to see the bride together (who was hiding in the backstage), while the groom was busy with his ritual. We took pictures of the bride then came out for dinner. My friend showed me around and intoduced to me all the dishes and I video taped the whole thing. I even went behind the counter to be a chef for a minute, which was really fun. The only thing that bothered me a little that night is that there was one guy grabbed me in my arm and asked me to give him the video camera. I first thought he was kidding but he was dead serious. I said no, and tried to get away from him, but he was persistent and kept asking me. My friend from Delhi came to rescue and I was able to escape. But soon my friend was 'trapped' again by him and his father. They were asking my friend to send the son US Visa. What the heck??? I went to rescue her and we finally could start eating.

After the dinner, I was sitting on the table and my wife and friend went for desert, the son came back again and asked me for my phone no. I told him that I was from China so he said me for my Chinese phone no. He said he was going to call me and he told me his name is 'honey'. What kind of man call himself 'honey', and NO WAY I am going to call him that! Sure, I gave him a fake chinese no. and he said something that I didn't understand and left.

We didn't stay too long at the party, the wedding was going to last till next day, and we needed to go back to Delhi to stay with her for the night. We took the picture with the bride and groom and we went back to the bride's home with the bride as she needed to change the dress. We pulled out our luggage and said goodbye to them in rush. Her monther was kind enough to give Jessica a necklace as a gift. We said good bye to everyone and got into the car with our friend heading back to Delhi.

By the time we got to our friend's house, it was almost mid night. Her parents went to sleep already. We took a shower and got into bed soon as well. The masquito had a 'Chinese buffet' that night. And that, was our Day 5 in India.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 51

Day 4. We woke up early as usual. We heard from the hotel staff that Taj Mahal opens @ 5:30am, and we got ready and left the hotel around that time. 2 minutes walk and we were at the ticket office. The good thing about being early was that no tout came bothering us. The ticket is 750 rupees for foreigners and 50 rupees for locals. With tickets, we can claim a bottle of water and one shoe cover (because no shoe is allowed on Taj Mahal). I went to the water stand asking for water and the guy gave me only one, and showed me on the ticket that one bottle per ticket, even I showed him two tickets. I STRONGLY insisted to have two bottles, and finally he gave me another one. Male and Female need to go through security check seperately in two lines. The security office found a USB cable in my camera case and told me it was not allowed. I had to put it into storage, and it was free.

Finally we were inside of the Taj Mahal building and everything started to calm down. The sun was barely coming out, and there were not much visitors inside. It was a good moment. We went through the main gate, where I had to deposit my video camera (because it's not allowed, only camera is allowed). We went in and started to enjoy the one of the wonders of the world. We spent about 4 hours inside appreciating the beauty of this tomb. We walked on the marble floor and it was very nice (untill noon when it's getting hot). We even saw a Indian boy in a shirt saying 'Shanghai'. What's the odd? We took a picture of him. The only thing that ruined my moment a bit was when two guys showed up in front of us when we were sitting on the floor relaxing and asked us 'are you chinese?' I looked at them and I knew these two guys are crocks. They didn't look like usual touts who were trying to make a living, they were people who were dangerous with deal with. So we ignored them but one guy still stared at us and asked us the same question. I started to talk Shanghainess to him, and he picked it up really quickly. Eventually they left, and they could repeat what I said by then. ( I guess they will use it on someone to see what does it mean).

Before we left, we went to the toilet. The toilet was free for foreigners and 2 or 5 rupees for locals (YEAH, the only advantage of being a foreigner in India!). When I got out, the boy at the door tried to stop me for something, I pointed at the sign which says "free for foreigner" and kept walking away. He the said something like 'no money', but I coudn't care what he wanted at that time. Maybe he had a good reason to stop me for something, but at that time, I just couldn't trust anyone.
Went out Taj, we stopped by a street vendor for some snacks, I picked some deep fried pancake like stuff and some pancake that was burned on the open flame. I figured the open flame and hot oil should have killed all the germs. We went back to hotel and freshed up. Checked out the room, and went on our afternoon journey.

Left the hotel and we headed to the Taj complex gate, at the gate I asked one of the guards (did I mention they were all armed with heavy weapon?) there where the 'baby Taj' was. It was a tomb built by the treasurer, and it was a small version of the Taj Mahal. We were approached by several rickshaw drivers and the price one of them quoted us was 100 rupee. There were several of them so I asked another driver for the price, and I got 80 rupee. Well, we had a winner then. The two drivers had a 'discussion' in Hindu before we left. I bet they were arguing that the driver broke their 'pricing guideline'.

When we got to the Baby Taj (Itmad du Daula), the driver said he could wait for us and took us back. We could pay him later for both trips later. Well, works for me. We went into the baby Taj, and paid the video ticket and started our sightseeing. Baby Taj was nice as well, a small version of Taj Mahal and much less crowded. We spent almost 2 hours there and when we came back, the rickshaw driver was almost ready to jump off bridge. We asked him to take us to Agra Fort, and he quoted 50, we said 40, and we settled at 45 rupee (still a rip off). We arrived Agra Fort and the driver decided not to wait for us. He figured that we were not easy business. We paid him and went into Agra Fort. A guard there at the gate was being friendly to me and said he could buy tickets for us. I still didn't trust him with my money, and turned it down.

Agra Fort was a big complex to look around, we spent about another 2 hours looking around. From the fort, we could see Taj Mahal from a distance. The tout was much less there, and we weren't bothered by many people. We looked around, rested a little bit, then left the fort to go to a local bazzar close to the train station. I asked the person at the storage room how much would it cost for a rickshaw to get there, and I was told it was about 20, 25 rupee. We went out and found a rickshaw, we were quoted 50 rupee, and I countered 25 rupee. He accepted, and we stepped on. We toured the bazzar, had some street food again. It was a potato pancake deep fried in oil and dressed with spice, ginger, cashew and some sauce. We liked it. Jessica also tried something that I didn't know the name. It was some 'fortune cookie' like thing that the server will poke a hole in the middle then scope it in a bucket of 'soup'. It was not a hygiene choice because they usually handle food and money with the same hand. But we were adventurous enough to try it. The good thing is that we got for free. They decided not to charge us for that thing. It might be that they wanted us to sample it only.

We took another rickshaw from bazzar to train station, and waited the train at the station. The train station was not in good shape. I even think the old train station in Shanghai when I was young is better than the one in Agra. Finally, the train arrived after being 15 mintues late. We concluded our trip to Agra. During this trip, Jessica was mistaken as Tibetan when we were in Taj Mahal, and I was mistaken as Mongual at the train station. And we were being asked 'Japanese?' numerous times.

Around 11pm, we arrived Delhi train station. Our taxi driver was there already waiting for us, but we went to the wrong exit and we called the driver, and he asked us to wait at where we were, and he came and found us.

We got back to the guest house midnight. We would need to go to a different guest house for the night (which was owned by the same person and was really close to where we stay 2 days before). We went there and found the light in the toilet didn't work. The servant tried to get away from it, but I insisted him fixing the light. He changed light bulb and did something and WaLa, there came the light. The toilet still in bad shap but the room has a much quiter air condition. I had a better rest that night, and that was our day 4.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 50

Day 3 in Noida, India. Morning 6am, we took a taxi to the Delhi train station. It's an old train station (not the one in new Delhi). It's in pretty bad shape. The guard there were all armed with rifle or machine guns. We went on the train, and found our seats after looking carefully at our tickets. The train ride itself was ok, but the sight along the way wasn't that pleasant. There was almost a village under each bridge we went by. By 10:30am, we arrived in Agra where we would see Taj Mahal. The moment we stepped off the train, we got followed by taxi drivers touting for service. We were convinced that a pre-paid taxi was the way to go, and we were looking for pre-paid taxi stand as soon as we left the platform. We saw a small pre-paid taxi stand across the exit, but it didn't look right to me. 'Where is the policy who is manning the booth?' I was thinking. 'It must not be the one'. We started to walk around and we were followed by a team of taxi drivers. We tried to ask the policeman at the gate where the pre-paid taxi was, and he wasn't really helpful (well, he wasn't helpful at all). Finally we circled back to the pre-paid taxi stand, and the policeman inside gave us a ticket, and we paid the taxi fee base on the price written on the board. I could feel the the people around me staring at my wallet intensively when I pulled the money out of the wallet. At that moment, we realized that police there and taxi drivers were working together. Police there didn't control the taxi drivers, it was the other way around. We took the reciept and followed the driver to the car. There were two of them in the car. One is the driver (who doesn't speak English), the other one is the talker. I was concerned with this fact and I made a phone call to our friend to let her know that we arrived and we were riding in taxi to our hotel. I talked loud enough so that the 'talker' can hear me. The talker started talking, introduced himself and asked our names. He said he was an economics major in the school and this was his side job. I asked him what did he think about the current stock market. He said, 'oh, there are a lot of markets here in India'. Yeah, right! He continued to try to sell us his guided tour in Agra, but I told him that we had a friend in the city and we were on our way to meet her. Then he finally shut up.

The taxi stopped around 500 meters away from Taj Mahal complex (that's what they call it, a complex) because taxi was not allowed to get closer. After confirming the fact with the hotel (thank god for unlocked cell phone), we got off the taxi and started to wonder where should we go now. The talker asked us for the reciept (with the reciept, they will go back to the train station to get the money we paid earlier). Then he grabbed a manual rickshaw and told us the rickshaw can take us there for 20 rupees. Well, he underestimated us. We asked him which direction the hotel was, and we started walking. We got in this local market street and it was in poor condition (to say the least). It's narrow, dirty, and full of traffic and touts. All kind of rickshaw, animal and people were walking in both directions. We walked for a while and reached a conjunction which we didn't know which branch to follow. The rickshaw driver at that time showed up and said 'wrong way, wrong way', and he 'insisted' to take us to the hotel. We asked him how much and he still said 20 rupees. "No way, we just walked that long way", I thought, I countered 10, and he accepted it. We hop on the rickshaw and he took us to the hotel (I found that we WERE heading the right direction). Anyway, we arrived and I paid him 10 rupees. He was mummering something (might be cursing us that time) but I didn't really care that much. It's not that I couldn't afford this 5 rupees ($1 = 45 rupees), it's a matter of principle. We just don't like to be ripped off when we know we can avoid, even for a penny.

After navigate through more touts we finally arrive the hotel. It was really close to Taj Mahal and it was quite and clean (comparing to outside). We settled down and we asked the hotel to arrange a taxi service for us to go to Fatephur Sikri, an abandoned kingdom for sightseeing. We asked for a non-AC car, because we were not huge fan of air condition in cars. The taxi driver showed up after 30 minutes and we set off our journey. The ride to the destination wasn't really peasant either, but by that time we have got used to it. Still the same image, dusty, dirty, animals, crazy drivers, and more of the same things.

The taxi driver dropped us off in front of a group of 'guides'. We are surrounded by them when we were still in the car. The moment we got off the car, we were attacked by all kinds of offers for guide services for various reasons. One guy tried to act authority-like and told us a guide was good for us because we won't be bothered there by other guides and beggars, and I fired him first (having problem with authority). We asked them how long was it to the gate, and they said it was gonna be 1 km. Well, we just ran a marathon, we can handle 1km. So we started to walk, then they followed us and said it was 2 km, the and told us the guys earlier tried to understate the distance so that we won't feel bored on the way. Well, 2km still didn't cut it. We went on walking. In the middle of way to the site, we met a single female (I think she is from US, but didn't ask her) on her way back from the opposite direction. I asked her how were things up there, and she said we just had to be persistent saying no. We compliment that she was so brave going there along (especially with a camera in front of her and small bag on her shoulder, she didn't look 'armed and dangerous' at all to me). Anyway, she looked not scared at all, and we were glad that we talked to her and felt much better about ourselves too. We kept on going and reached another fork branch road. We remember the girl told us to 'stay on the road', and we did. We went into a local market very much like the one we just went through one hour ago next to Taj Mahal. After 15 minutes of walking and we reached the end of the market and we realized that we went the wrong way. We then headed back to the branch road, and went onto another branch and finally we arrived the gate of the Fatepur Sikri complex.

Yes, there was an army of guides and touts, we ignored them and started our sightseeing. At this moment, anyone who wanted to start a conversation with us will be ignored and hold hostile against. Some guy in the complex asked us for video ticket when he saw me video taping, and I totally ignored him. He got louder and louder and eventually I told him if he wan't a policyman, don't bother talking to me. He continued to follow us and shouting for video tickets, and I decided to find a policy man for help. We eventually saw a policy man at the gate and we started to walk towards him. The other guy stopped following us and yelled at the policy man something and left. The policy asked me if I was video taping and I said yes. He told me that I needed a video ticket, and I could get it at the ticket office. Ok, I went back to the ticket office and got my ticket. Everything finally settled down. But I was at the edge by that time.

3 hours went by fast, I coudn't wait to leave because I was stressed out and was sick of the touts. Although the site itself worth the time to continue exploring, we have to get back to our taxi before it started to charge us 100 rupee / hour. We got back to the taxi and left the place. I was somewhat relaxed in the car. On our way back, we witnessed a street fight between two richshaw drivers. One of them pick up a brick on the ground and chased the other one. I didn't see the brick, my wife did. But it amazed me how one can just pick a brick from the ground in the middle of the road.

Back to hotel, we had our dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was a total rip off. The dinner was half of the price of our one night stay at the hotel, and we just had some vegatables, rice and egg. Fortunately, we brought some fish can with us, and we ate it with rice. That concluded our day 3 in Agra, India.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 49

After we got back from Portland, OR for our first marathon, We rested on day at home (packed our luggage, cleaned the gutter). We sat on the plane to Delhi the next day.

We first arrived JFK airport @ NY around noon. We checked in, went through custom. And waited @ the gate for our plane from Air India. The plane itself wasn't bad. There weren't any seats in front of us so we have plenty leg space. Only the guy sitting next to us was a big guy and he took a lot of space. The food was great on the plane. Jessica had chicken curry and I ordered fish expecting something indian. Well, it was not, it's a western style poached fish and I didn't like it at all. The next day, breakfast was egg and sausage, nothing exciting. After 16 hours of sitting, we finally arrived Delhi at 4:45pm local time. The airport policy was armed with rifle or semi-auto machine guy. We had a pick up at the airport arranged by a friend of ours here in US. We were glad we had a pick up because the traffic is horrible and there wasn't much order or directions in clean display (and we soon found out the pre-paid taxi was not as we expected).

Arrived at the bride's home in Noida in the evening, I was tired already. We chated with bride's parents and we went to the guest house close by. The room seemed to be ok but the toilet is dirty (and soon we found it was normal). We didn't know how to use the water heater (or maybe it wasn't working anyway). I had to have a cold water shower. I wasn't feeling that well that night, and we decided not to go back to bride's home for dinner. We had some simple airplane food we saved, and I went to bed with air condition on. The air condition sounded like a jet plane and I coudn't stand it. I had to shut it down, but sleeping in a room with no windows at 90F wasn't pleasant either. The tiger essential balm came into rescue (thank god my wife packed it). I put it on my temple, under nose and back above my neck, and I felt much better. I had some rest the next morning before I woke up around 5am.

It was still early in the morning and our friend (the bride) surely wasn't wake. We walked around the block and watched the street getting busy. The streets are really in bad shape, dusty, dirty, and full of construction and human trashes. It wasn't a pleasant sight. We came back to hotel and waited for a while, then went to the bride's home. She was barely waking up so we sat outside of the house in the patio for a while. I had three cups of hot water and that helped bringing my fever down a bit more. We had breakfast almost noon (I was starving by that time), and the food was good. A bit later, we met the sister of one of our coworker friends here. She was nice enough to take us around for some shopping and she gave us a package to take back to US for her sister. We told her to bring more package because our luggage can fit more. So we agreed to meet again two days later when we were back from Agra. After that, we just sat around in bride's house and in the afternoon, we went to a nearby 'club' (almost like a building built for community event) for the engagement party. The club seemed to be half done, there were still constructions going on next to it. Anyway, we started the party a while later and the guests started to arrive. The cousins of the bride danced at the party, and we enjoyed the show. The groom eventually showed up and the dance show stopped. The official engagement ceremony started.

While the couple was sitting in front of everybody going through the ceremony. Guests started to eat. We liked the food there even there wasn't any animal protein. The engagement party went on, and we finally left for guest house and went to bed early because we had a early train to catch the next day. That was our day 2 in Noida, India.