nilima en el mundo

So, as I’ve said most of my trip thus far has been relatively hassle free, nice people, reasonable prices, etc etc etc. Then we went to Agra, (exasperated sigh inserted after the first syllable to represent, well, exaperation) but some fun was mixed in too.

My close friend Caroline and her Fiance Craig, travelling overland from Thailand, met us in Agra, which was great fun for me (I’d visited them in Thailand too, there’s something really thrilling about seeing close friends from home in foreign lands, and it’s fun to navigate them together. Unfortunately Caroline and Craig had come from Varanassi, and after a day in Agra were sort of fed up with the whole India thing).

So, the four of us left our hotel to go eat, on the way out the hotel guy said,

“where are you going?”

“to eat” Craig said, savvy to this kind of questioning

“We have food here!” the man called out. We planned to walk to the restaurant we’d found in LP (lonely Planet) but the harrassment on the road was too great,

“Where are you going? 300 ruppees all day, Taj Mahal, Baby Taj, Red Fort, no waiting or parking fees, Taj Mahal very beautiful . . .

We tried saying we’re eating, or walking but no one would believe us that we wanted to walk, and saying we’re eating only invited a barage of restaurant “suggestions.” We finally got in an auto and lingered over a huge lunch or saag paneer, chana masala, veg. jalfrezi, lassis and deserts. Being in the cool, quiet restaurant was a welcome reprieve. When we finally decided we should do the tourist thing a very sweet and honest auto driver was hired and we spent the afternoon at the Baby Taj, engrossed in deep religious discussions on the different types of Protastantism, Hinduism as interpreted from Vasi’s “Religions for Idiots” book. The main interruption was a monkey fight in a nearby tomb.

After that we stopped for mangos and then to see the backside of the Taj for sunset. Craig had noticed Vasi and I buying kids biscuits and giving them fruit, and this prompted another conversation. I’d thought giving food was okay, just not money. They’d read that it’s better not to even do that, as it sets up a relationship of dependence and teaches kids to look for handouts, presumably rather than working hard. This again rose many dilemnas — if a child is actually hungry, is refusing them food going to help them achieve self sufficiency? Do our individual actions even matter? I agreed that it’s best to not get too caught up with individuals, and better to work through organizations.

Anyway, this boy, about 12 wanted us to ride his families’ camel down on the bank of a river behind the Taj. At first it was that typical stilted relationship between tourist and local. We didn’t want to ride and were guarded to have to be firm with a young child trained to try to get rides. Luckily Craig and I steered the conversation onto the boy, the camel’s name and sleeping habits and other mundane but funny topics. Before too long the 6 of us (camel named Raja, which Vasi heard as Roger) were walking along the dunes. The kid turned out to be very quick and started speaking to us in what seemed like perfectly accented Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. We were even more impressed when we nonchalantly explained that the reason the Taj is so expensive for foreigners (750 rupees versus 20 for locals) is because people used to come and just throw down big wads and not ask for change, so the govt caught on and upped the price. Thank you rich tourists.

We hung out on the beach for a few hours squatting on the beach. Craig explained to a Catholic school teacher that he is “both Jewish and Christian” but not Catholic, which was hard to understand. A conversation on the Coca cola company and international currency ensued.

Oh, the Taj itself? It was beautiful, majestic etc etc, but I was really content just seeing it from the outside, and Caroline said the other side is basically the same, except that you walk inside and that’s it. So, Vasi and I decided we’d forgo paying to get in the next day. Partially Im just cheap (and she’d lost her debit card so cash was tight) but it was also a sort of mini-rebellion: it was bad enough that i’d even come to Agra, I sort of prided myself on not doing typical tourist things, and seeing the Taj at night from the beach was the perfect compromise.

Tags: India, Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under India, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.