Agra and Delhi

Tuesday 2-3-2009 -- Wednesday 3-3-2009
Agra
Where The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders in the world located.
According to our plan, when we reach agra, we will not be able to see the sunrise on taj mahal. Therefore, we will have to go to Taj in the evening and wake up early to see the sunrise before we leave to New Delhi. Who knows, the sun rises quite late that day--we were able to see the sunrise on Taj mahal at the rooftop restaurant at Shanti Lodge. Hehe…we were watching at Taj and observing the color changes on it while having breakfast leh!! Moreover, the pancake is quite okay. We were able to take photos clearly from our seats and that’s why CC and jiejie took taj’s photo every 5 min respectively till the breakfast are served. The restaurant has great Taj view but the room has terrible cigarette smell. I had asked the worker to clean the room I saw before I check in but I never expect that the worker didn’t clean the other room for us. Thus, throughout the morning, jiejie kept going in and out to have fresh air. Maybe it’s a budget hotel, it doesn’t provide and hangers or hook for us in the bathroom. SO, we have to help each other to pass the clothes piece by piece after bathing.

After washed up, we went to Agra Fort. Wow, the road blocks to enter the fort are just too many. First, the salesman selling all kind of marble box, marble taj mahal model, taj mahal’s key chain…is this Taj or agra fort? How come all the souvenirs are about Taj only?? Second, the ticket to enter the fort. Yeeyong had already message me, telling that the fort charges 250 and it’s a very old fort. Still, SE and CC would like to try to get the local price since we have other government places’ tickets in local price. At the beginning, SE was speaking properly to the counter man. Later, when he refused to recognized the reliability of the tickets, SE started to angry with him. ‘do you have more tickets? Like taj mahal one?’ ‘do you expect us to keep all tickets?!’ ‘okok, you go to office and tell’ All 3 girls are waiting outside while the 2 guys went to the office and ask. CC looked very very fierce again!

There are nothing for us to do. And due to we have nothing to do, we worry them more. What if they quarrel with the officer and the officer beat them? What if they don’t allow them to come out? All what if ends when we saw them coming out safely. From their expression, we knew that they failed. Haiz…what to do? Whether they allow us to buy in local price or not, we have to go since we are here already. Then, they started their story in the office: the officer said that the tickets we showed is not in Uttar Pradesh state; you are Karnataka students, not Uttar Pradesh! ‘So, do you mean that im a Karnataka’s student but not an Indian student? Rajasthan is in India, Uttar Pradesh is not in India?!” and when the officer is unable to explain anymore, he just run off and ask others to reject them.! @Q##%T$^#%#@\

The third road block is the security check. Few guards are waiting at the entrance but they basically didn’t touch the foreigners. The side and outer part of the fort are actually damaged already: no maintenance, and many peoples wrote something disgusting and rude words on the wall. Walking to another side, the real structure and palace in the fort is seen.

The main tower in this fort is for Shah Jahan to look at the Taj, after he is overthrown by his son Aurangzeb. According to what we heard is that Aurangzeb stayed in the fort and the Shah Jahan is jailed in the tower; according to what yentsen understood, the whole fort is the prison for Shah Jahan, meaning he can walk to anywhere in the fort and he also can see the Taj. It is actually not difficult to runaway from the fort as the river surrounding it (护城河) is dry and not really deep. Also, from the explanation we heard, the Taj is special not only because it’s made by marble but also its design and architecture. Taj looked closer to us at A though the exact distance from A is further than that from B. Besides that, there is a very big garden which looked like the place for diva to dance; rooms for the women, rooms for the 大臣 to work, a hall for the king to meet the 大臣 and a praying place for the ladies to pray. Even the weather is hot, the marbles are still maintaining the coolness. So, as long as you keeps on walking on it, you feel less heat.

Coming out from the fort is the time for us to show our best to run away from all the salesmen and boys. You will really surprise that why they can decrease the price so fast even you don’t speak anything; and the way they sell the goods. They will just put on your hand without holding it or supporting it! That’s crazy and it was really a difficult time to get through all of them in the hot afternoon. Also, we were not able to talk to yen tsen they all even we meet! Some followed us to the auto stand too--one boy followed us to auto and said that the taj key chains are 10 for 5. Ei…meaning one keychain is only 2rupee? That’s cheap! After 打眼色with CC, we decided to buy it together. Ha! Guess what happened when we want to pay? ‘10 DOLLARS!’ “you are mad! Auto, go!’ From that moment onwards, we know that’s the trick to con others in Agra--confusing you with rupee and dollars! 岂有此理！

After having so much of non-veg in the previous days, shouldn’t we go for some vegetarian food? According to LP, most of the places that sounds nice to me is vegetarian restaurant, coincidently and hence I decided to go to veg restaurants in Agra. We went to Zorba the Buddha for lunch which is described as a popular place for healthy soups, salads, and indulgent ice cream. The food is nice but the portion is way small for us to share and the serving is too slow--they took one hour to prepare our food, I guess? While we were paying, the boss started to explain to us that his workers are on leave so he has to do everything himself and hence we have to wait for such a long time.

Maybe due to the hot weather, SE feels headache and has to take medicine already. So, we have to go back for him to rest first before we go to Taj for sunsets. Who knows, we entered a shop and stayed there till 4 something--we bought the modal for Taj mahal and for myself, I bought a hair pin.

By 5pm, we went to the east gate of Taj Mahal as we were told that the South gate is closed already. On the way to Taj, one kid came and talk to us in fluent English. As we are closer to Taj, more kids come and chitchatting with us--they actually want us to go to their shops after visiting Taj! Intelligent aren’t they? Everyone knows that no matter what we say, we have to pay 750 for the entrance fee where the local pays 20 ONLY! Such a big difference is worth for us to keep trying to get the local ticket. But, failed! I was the only one who able to carry the bag to the Taj as I told the security guard that I need LP; most of the things are left in the locker but not the cameras--wc brought her camera with her too! We take our own sweet time there and take as many photos as possible since this is the only thing we can do after paying 750 besides getting a closer look or touching the marble tomb or you can say, the memorial for Mumtaz Mahal--wife of Shan Jahan who dies for giving birth to the 14th child. it’s a symmetrical building which you need to walk from the south, west, and east gate to the second inner gate to see it. In front of the building, there was a long rectangular shape pool where the shadow of the taj falls on it.

It is not easy to take photos of Taj too--you need to compete with the people who pays for 20 only for certain angle to capture the photos. Then, to enter the Taj, you need to either cover your shoes with the plastic bag provided or remove our shoes. There is only 2 tombs in the Taj: the bigger one is for Mumtaz where the smaller one is for Shan Jahan. No light is on in the Taj and no photos are allowed too.

As we walked around the Taj and take photos, we met Armar and his elder brother. I wasn’t very happy when the guard started to ask us to leave by 6.30pm as they will close at 7pm. (if that night is a full moon night, then Taj will be opened for a longer period as It looked different under moonlight, sunrise and sunsets.) I am rebellious, that’s why I kept on self capture as I leave~吹我不 jiok!

Once we came out, all the children come to us. They called other kids as ‘cockroach’ and started selling you and trying to ask you to enter their shops. Jiejie, SE and CC wanted to buy the key chain and stone elephant. As they were choosing inside the shop, WC and I are disturbed so badly! When we were waiting outside, many kids keep on selling their key chains in the cheapest price (1 rupee each) with such 诚恳和痛心的表情，ｔｈｅｙ　ａｒｅ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｔｅｌｌｉｎｇ　ｕｓ　ｉｆ　ｗｅ　ｄｏｎ‘ｔ　ｂｕｙ　ｔｈｅｉｒｓ，　ｙｏｕ　ａｒｅ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｌｏｓｓ　ｔｈｅ　ｂｅｓｔ　ｔｈｉｎｇ　ｅｖｅｒ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｗｏｒｌｄ！; When we go inside the shop, the child will keep on talking to you. I have to admit that their owner train them perfectly (their hands have a burnt mark.) Whatever your eyes look at, they will just bring the thing to you and start selling. One kid is mad. He wanted to exchange something from our country.

‘we are traveling, do you think we will bring unnecessary things?’

‘how about your watch?’

‘my watch?’

“how much?’

‘10 thousand~’

‘do you know how much is this? This is 16 thousand!’

What is that? A set of cups which I stared at it for 10 sec just now.

‘can I see?’ ‘nope! Given by father, no one can touch it!!’

‘oh sorry, no problem~’

When jiejie gets disturbed too later, we requested the boss to ask his kids to shut up because I seriously having headache in the shop now! This makes me wonders, if his son didn’t overthrown him and he built one more black color taj mahal just opposite the white one, will I fall sick just because of the kids promote too much on their products?

When we stepped out from the shop, its was over 7.30 and all other shops are surprisingly closed already. So, silently, we walked to the Shankara Vegis restaurant for dinner. The impact of the kids was so big that I started feeling cold and unwell. Therefore, I ordered a fresh orange juice and shares noodles and some dishes as usual. But the orange is not FRESH! It tastes like the overripe orange which is exposed under sun for a long time. We complained to the boss softly but the boss were just shouting loudly that the juice is fine and the orange taste is like that originally! We don’t want other knows that he is serving something bad but he just simply shout it out, trying to convince people that we are crapping with louder volume? Fine, Im lazy to quarrel with you..I need a rest..whatever!!!!!!!!! We slept quite early after dinner as some of us are feeling unwell already and we need to stay healthy as far as possible so that we will not ruin our Manali trip!!

Wednesday 4-3-2009
Delhi
Capital city in India!
From Agra cantonments railway station to New Delhi railway station takes 4 hours only and our next train to Amritsar is at 8pm, but its at old Delhi. India is very big; to be its capital city, the city itself has to be big too; India has second highest population after china; so in capital city, the population will be high too. High population gives rise to jobless; to avoid being jobless, the most common job you can get is driving an auto, I think? There was too many taxi and auto drivers waiting at the railway station. They were trying their best just to stop us from going to the prepaid auto stand. Even, when CC and SE were paying, some of the auto man are still talking to them. The worst part is that there are people cut quere! CC and SE had to block them using their bags, especially CC, he has to push all the idiots away with his skinny body so that SE can proceed with the prepaid stuffs. Maybe prepaid taxi booth gives them too little amount since the auto man keeps asking for more pay. The auto system in Delhi is different from Bangalore: you have to search for the auto who is willing to accept your prepaid ticket in delhi whereas in B’lore, you have to take the first in line.

Delhi is just too big to estimate the time to reach one place from the other. Since we will be coming to Delhi again on Monday, we shouldn’t rush for places which are far from the railway station. But not the lotus temple as it is the main place that we wanted to go and it closes on Monday. It’s named as lotus temple not because of lotus carries the meaning of purity but is due to the shape of the temple is in Lotus flower shape. It’s a ‘Bahai’ worship in which they belief that the connection between God and human are connected through the messenger like Jesus, Buddha. We heard that its always crowded and some of batch mates were not able to visit it after lining up for the whole day. So, I had asked Zarrin whether she can bring us in seeing that she volunteers in the temple. Unexpectedly, before we sms her, she met us in the garden and that‘s why we don‘t have to carry our backpack while visiting but put them in the office! Oh gosh..after staying in India for 2 years, its so hard for me to belief that the garden is located in INDIA. The garden is very big, green, full with different types of flowering plantation. Also, the toilet is so high-tech--automatic hand wash!! Imagine, a temple (which usually will not spend much on the unnecessary exterior look and the facilities) has such a gorgeous design of lotus flower with its museum, hostels, high-tech facilities and a ‘normal’ garden in INDIA! Could you imagine how surprised we are?! She brought us to leave our footwear, put our bag packs in the office, explains here and there and get the permission for us to enter the museum which presents the history of the founder (Bahai), his teaching and his believes, photos of the worship in another countries (there are only 7 worship in the world but everyone is very big and unique ) and books in different language, including Malay! There, we met Abbas again and another malay group (widatul and dayana).
Though we have time to go to another place, shouldn’t we go for lunch first? We wanted to go to the McDonalds that we saw on the way to Lotus Temple. Its so near but the Auto just don’t want to cut down his price. One auto marked us and he was actually spying what we talked to other auto man. Stupid, if you want us to take your auto, don’t be so greedy and increase the rate so much! Will you earn money by just scolding at other auto man who gives a lower rate?? The McDonalds is in IP max which is a cinema complex. It is not big but with AC, its more than enough for us to stay till 6 pm since it was already 4 when we reached! Burgers, fries, soft drinks….I never expected that CC love McDonalds so much; jiejie feels so happy to have coca cola (哇！真的很爽~我很久没有喝了！终于明白你们为什么看到mcD 会这么兴奋，我只来印度2个星期，都有点想念mcD了！！）。Maybe I will as excited as they do if that is a KFC! I have a little bit of diarrhea after that, unfortunately! Immediately, I took medicine from SE, in the hope that it will stop as soon as possible.
Delhi is so big and there should be many auto available but its not so: most of them don’t want to go so far; some of them want a higher pay; some don’t understand English. We realized that the bigger the city is, the more the difference in their standard--we had more communication problem in Delhi if compared to Udaipur or Jaisalmer! Finally, we simply took 2 which were considered as ‘expensive’ one as there was traffic jam and we afraid that we will miss the train. But, could we confirm that they know where are we going? Nope! Only one guy in the bus station can translate for us, not even those who were properly dressed up one. SWEAT! Along the way, we need to remain alert-- we need to know where is another auto goes, try to recall whether we pass some places that we saw in the morning or not. We lost each other few times and we need to wave our hands out from the auto to call them in the high ways! I can say that if we didn’t realize about the vehicle coming from behind, we may in risk of getting our hands broken!
We had actually more than enough time to reach the station but because the stupid auto went to pump petrol and that took us around half an hour!??!! Therefore, we were almost running to the station, who cares to pay extra to them!? The cruel fact is that the train is delayed. We are clueless whether the platform is correct or not; when will the train arrived? The only thing we can blindly follow is follow the Punjab people as we are going to their world! At the beginning, I was able to walk here and there though there was many people and many luggage! But later, due to the medicine I took, im getting tired and exhausted. I couldn’t open my eyes anymore, feeling cold, not feeling to do anything, even when CC told me there is a ’mickey mouse’ around me, I didn’t care about it too! On the other hand, jiejie was very excited asking CC about the train system in India, take the photos of the general compartment and discuss how could the Indian jump up to the train at the very last minute when the train is already started its journey. Slowly, everyone gets sleepy. The train arrived around midnight (which should arrived at 9!) and before I sleep, I finally realized that the Punjab wears the ready made turban. Their hair is not as long as what I heard--they never cut their hair. Accompanied by 2 Punjab, we go to Amritsar.