BootsnAll Travel Network



The Big Taj

Now, I don’t even know where tobegin.  The past two weeks in Rajasthan were fantastic.  We noticed a change yesterday arriving in Agra.  A new state and a new world as far as I can tell.  Rajasthan had its ups and downs, but overall it was great.  Since the terrorist attack in November in Mumbai, India has clamped down.  Internet was virtually non-existant in Delhi and Rajasthan.  Every hotel had it and none worked.  Internet cafes were unseen.  Finally, I discovered that it has been tightened because of threat.  I have to provide ID and fill out paperwork to use it.  Another country giving into the terrorists!

It appears to Mr. X and I that India has more to worry about than there terrorist neighbors.  The two largest threats I see daily are opium addiction of the masses (40% of the world’s opium users are here in India) and their own military.  India has some of the strangest priorities I have seen.  We witnessed hundreds of manned and ready-to-go tanks 200 kilometers from the Pakistani border (as close as you can get in Rajasthan) and then we have seen social issues far-outstripping anywhere else I have been.  I see social stratification like nothing I have ever imagined and it must come from the caste system.  I know very little about the castes, but we see the hierarchy everywhere. 

Today was the most underwhelming day of the trip so far.  I bought my ticket for the Taj Mahal and then was told that a VIP was coming through and the place was emptied.  About 90% of the tourists are Indian.  The middle and upper classes of India are thriving and traveling.  Meanwhile, I see hundreds of children everyday serving the tourists.  Child-labor issues like all social issues are magnified beyond my comprehension in India.  It seems like everything here is extreme – good and bad.  The extreme about the Taj Mahal is that it is the greatest tourist trap in the world and the last time I was in such a skanky tourist area was that crap little town at the base of Machu Picchu.

The problem with the Taj is that there is such a gushy story about the place and it is crap.  Such a love story, they say.  The guy was an egomaniac and he built the tomb for his own glory.  Latest take on the design and Koranic inscriptions within is that he built a replica of God’s Throne from Koran or some other holy diddy.  Luckily for us, 80% less tourists allowed us to blow in and out once the VIP was gone.  To think the throngs I saw in there are only 20% normal… yikes!  My best advice… skip drug-infested, open-sewerage Agra and spend the time a bit further west in Rajasthan.  My expectations on this place have been grossly unrealized.  Damn! 

I’ll write about better things later including tigers, Rajasthanis and the sites.  Mr. X was nearly run down two nights ago by a wild boar.  Plus we have had many close calls with bikes, rickshaws, tuk-tuks and everything else that moves.  1.15 billion…. Jesus, please pass out the condoms!  We are off to see the Dalai Lama tonight.  We aim to Shimla in the foothills and then make our way further north.  Maybe go to Kashmir to see what all the fuss is about.  Forget Israel and Palestine, the world’s most dangerous situation is right here ready to blow.

P.S.  If you have romantic visions of watching a sunrise or sunset on the Taj… wake up!  The air pollution is so thick that the sun is up an hour late and down an hour early just fading away into the gunk.  Tell you the truth, I’d take twice the air pollution for half the smell of human feces…



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