India - Agra

Living in India did not prepare me for India. The traffic is insane. A taxi driver in Manila told us Manila has the worst traffic and wouldn’t believe us when we said India was far worse. Manila is like Legoland compared to India. We stand out like neon fluorescent thumbs, and every scammer within a 5 miles radius makes a beeline for us. They all start with asking what country are we from, what’s our name, how long are we here, and so on. Nothing you say will deter these men. Ignoring them just means you haven’t heard them so maybe if they get louder and more insistent you will answer them. There was an ad on tv, in Hindu and sponsored by the tourism board, that showed two white women being hassled and an Indian man rescuing them and bitching out the abusers, with a few stern words for the viewer. It’s not working, but I appreciate the effort.

Agra has a reputation for being dirty and full of those clinging men, and it is one that is well earned. We lucked out in that the homestay we booked online is managed by a very kind married couple, both my age, that have decided the way to success is to sit with all their customers and give them tea and cookies (and you WILL eat the cookies) and have a lovely chat. I think they are probably right on this.

The Taj Mahal is stunning, though I felt a bit under whelmed. You see too many monuments, it becomes just another queue for tickets. I don’t care if I never see another church, mosque, palace or fort at this point. Every guidebook warns of the hawkers and guide men at the gates going in, but it wasn’t even remotely as bad as China was when I was there in ‘98. I guess China gets the gold in annoying tourists in that category. Later, beside the Taj, a man came up and started chatting with us and we kept ignoring him and finally told him we didn’t need a guide and he smiled politely and said he worked there and it was his job to make sure people took their shoes off in the Mosque. Whoops. I’m sure he gets that a lot. There’s still a chance he was going to try and get a tip for something from us though. I’m really not enjoying the feeling of being a bag of money to be bled out. I suppose many people here don’t enjoy the feeling of extreme poverty. It’s a circular thought that can really make you want to go home.

The highlight was when the bees started swarming, just as we walked under them. The Taj is infested with bees! These photos are about 10 or 20 seconds apart (however long it took to run away) and 30 minutes later they were gone.


The next day we headed to Ranthambore to go on a safari. You used to be guaranteed to see a wild tiger, but then some wardens realized they could really cash in if they killed all the tigers and sold their pelts. Surprisingly, we didn’t see any tigers, but a bird did land on my head.


We had to get up at 5am to buy tickets and get to the park for early morning and holy crap, I never expected India to be so cold. We’ve been freezing at night, but at least we’re under a blanket and not rocketing down a gravel road on a safari bus with no roof. Also, it turns out peacocks CAN fly, especially if you try to run them over.