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November
9, 1999
Agra, India
Hello, this
is Todd with the journal entry from the Around the World Team for
November 9. I must start this journal entry with a Happy Anniversary to
my grandparents who have been married 64 years today! Happy Anniversary
Grandpa and Grandma Borgie! They are pretty amazing people.
Yesterday
we spent the day in Agra. Doug, Earle, Jeff and I were up before the sun
to begin our walk to the Taj Mahal. Mr. Navlika, a friend of ours from
India, suggested that the best time to see the structure would be during
sunrise. Although we doubted this at 6:00 a.m., we were truly impressed
by 7:00 a.m. The path to the Taj lead us through a sea of personal tour
guides, hawkers and taxi cab drivers who try to sell you everything in
the city, the country and the world, for that matter.
But in the
end the reward was truly worth the pain. Even though I was standing
before the Taj Mahal, it just didn't seem real. It almost seemed as
though I was standing in front a large, painted canvas or photograph.
This structure was too beautiful to be true. It is surrounded by a large
garden, a place where one could easily spend the day just ogling at the
structure, reading a book, looking up and ogling again.
The Taj
Mahal was built for Shah Jahan's favorite wife upon her death. Apparently
he was planning to build a black mirror image, like a photograph's
negative, of it for his body to be laid in upon his death. However,
apparently his appetite for architecture and building was greater than
that of his court. He was ultimately arrested for his frivolous building
and lived out the remainder of his days in prison. If his court would
have known the future allure of this structure, I'm sure he would not
have been treated so harshly. There are a number of other structures that
he commissioned to be built, including the grand fort in Agra, which was
also a pretty amazing structure.
After
spending several hours at the Taj, we returned to our hotel for breakfast
and a nap. We have all been fairly worn down due to the rigors of travel
and car maintenance, and we all needed some down time. A couple of days
ago Jeff, Doug, and Earle became hooked on cricket, an English game that
has taken off in popularity in its former colonies. For three days,
Earle, Doug, Jeff, and eventually myself, were captivated by the
Pakistan-Australia match. Earle was not content to watch. He has been on
a quest to figure out the rules of this confusing game. Actually, he did
a great job of figuring it out and the information was of great use to us
as we invited ourselves over to play cricket with some young fellows from
Agra. The boys were great as they let us bowl, bat and field. I am not
sure what they thought of our cricket skills, especially as I most often
hit the ball high in the air, when it is much better to hit the ball on
the ground.
Kicking
around Agra was fun. We had taken the train from Delhi as to save us the
pain and anxiousness of driving here. Due to the train schedule, we had
to spend longer than we had anticipated. In other words, we had to kill
time until our train came to take us back to Delhi. This always puts you
in an interesting state of mind. Since we had four hours to kill before
our train came -- not really enough time to do anything -- we had lunch
and drank some Kingfishers, a local beer (if you can say being brewed in
Banglore qualified it as local).
We ate on
the rooftop of a restaurant that was caged in, and we soon learned it was
caged in to protect it from monkeys. Monkeys seem to rule this city,
taking what they want and hanging out where they want. They have to
endure the harassment of children throwing rocks at them once in awhile,
but I am sure they are smart and able to instill a sense of terror in
anyone they meet. As we wanted to get a better look at the animals, we
opened the metal gate that separated us from the monkeys. Within minutes,
the monkeys began making their way toward our haven. We had already seen
how they will steal anything they want, and we had heard of the horrors
of monkey bites, so we were not willing to take any chances. We quickly
closed the gate and contented ourselves to watch them thorough the metal
grate.
It was a
relaxing couple of hours eating and drinking as we gazed out upon the Taj
Mahal and were entertained by monkeys jumping from rooftop to rooftop and
hanging out in the trees. We made our way back to the train station by
hiring modified mopeds. These vehicles have a moped base but have a
rickshaw cab on the back that enables it to hold several people (two of
us comfortably, three of us uncomfortably, and multiple locals at an
unknown comfort level). Since there were six of us we hired three and the
race was on. It was neck and neck between Nick and Chanda and Doug and I.
However, Doug and I were able to pull off the short-lived victory as we
saw Earle and Jeff waiting for us at the station as we pulled up.
As we
waited for our train, we met some of our countrywomen from Minnesota who
are studying development in India. It was great to talk to them, as they
were able to answer many of our questions regarding the caste system.
They all had host families who were a part of this system and were able
to give us greater insight as a result. It truly is a confusing system
that requires hours of explanation to understand its many nuances. We
talked of the similarities and differences between our two countries and
decided there was a need for changes in both societies. Our train ride
was cheap and uneventful, as we were all tired and had to ourselves for
tomorrow’s drive. Negotiating for a cab back to the hotel was a routine
hassle and we all fondly looked back on the Beijing days where it was so
easy to negotiate for a taxi.
We are all
anxious about the upcoming days, especially the driving in Pakistan.
Hopefully our fears will be allayed as we progress safely across. This is
Todd signing off.
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