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.