So Saturday morning we check into the hotel, chill for about an hour, then are off and running to the Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah (this guy was the grandfather of Shah Jahan's wife, and lots of people think this was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal). That was a beautiful place - the main building had this fantastic detail work (lattice work carved from single blocks of stone, inlay - picture on flickr), and it's right on the banks of the Yamuna River, where you can look out and see the water buffalo. (See left. Those black dots are water buffalo.)
Here's a view of the main building from the side:
As we were getting ready to leave, Mark, one of the boys in my group, starts wandering off toward the side (towards a wall, as the whole complex is enclosed by a stone wall about 8 feet high). I followed him, and then I saw why: there were monkeys that seemed like they were literally crawling out of the wood (stone?) work. They were playing in the grass that was flooded from the overflow of the flower beds that were being watered:
Next we went back across the river and around town to Mahtab Bagh, the Moonlight Garden. It's an extension of the Taj Mahal garden, across the Yamuna River from the Taj. It used to have all kinds of night-blooming flowers in it so Shah Jahan could wander around at night and see
the Taj Mahal while surrounded by the sights and smells of these flowers. Which must have been phenomenal. But anyway, back to modern day. We walked through the garden over to the bank of the river, where I saw this boy walking towards us (on the other side of a barbed wire fence) with a camel! Of course, me being me, I decide I want to ride this camel - it's already saddled and everything. So I hop down from the wall, talk to the kid, crawl through the barbed wire fence, negotiate a price, and get one of the other girls from the group to ride with me. And someone got a fantastic picture of Erin and me riding a camel on the banks of the Yamuna River with a foggy Taj Mahal in the background. Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.It's well after noon at this point, and since we've been up so long we make a quick stop for lunch, then head to Agra Fort, still waiting for the fog to clear before we go to the Taj Mahal. Forts here are entire cities, not just fortresses housing military, so they're pretty giant. We didn't stay too long here, and it was really crowded, but we got to see where Shah Jahan was "imprisoned" by his son. His only request was to be able to see the Taj Mahal from his prison, which he can. But this is what he got for an actual area of confinement (view from inside of fort on left and view of the outside on the right):
...an absolutely beautiful, lavish multi-chamber complex, complete with fountain (that inset area on the floor). I wouldn't mind being a prisoner in that.
The other really cool thing about Agra Fort is that is has this awesome double moat around it. The outside one was a wet moat, filled with water and alligators and snakes and stuff. The inner one was a dry moat with lions and tigers. Which is to say that anyone who tried to attack any way other than parachuting into the center was probably certifiably insane.
While we were at Agra Fort, the sun actually started to peek out, so we rushed over to the Taj Mahal - which, it being a Saturday and the weather just clearing up, was intensely crowded. It's so pretty. And one hell of a way to commemorate a wife.
I managed to be a celebrity in the midst of all those people, with someone asking to take my picture every few minutes, and some not bothering to ask at all. I didn't really mind taking pictures with people - we as a group had been warned that we would probably be asked when we were at the Taj - but it bothered me greatly when the same group of guys asked me at three different points in my walk through the area and took a half a dozen photos each time, and also when people started snapping pictures without asking at all. Not something I've had to deal with before, and it almost started detracting from my enjoyment of this spectacular place. So instead of letting my day get ruined, I started taking pictures of my friend Sam doing
gymnastics on one of the platforms in front of the Taj....We're not typical tourists, most of the girls in this group. We were dancing on the lawns at the Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah, riding camels where camels probably weren't supposed to be, and Sam was doing gymnastics at the Taj. Although that was somewhat legitimate; the photographer who took our group photo asked her to. And I got some fantastic shots of her. Anyway, we stayed at the Taj Mahal until the sun was setting, which was gorgeous, and then we went back to the hotel, where they handed us some money and told us we were on our own for dinner. I ended up a couple blocks away from the hotel at some weird little restaurant with a very eclectic menu (macaroni and cheese, chow mein, and biryani, just to give a sample of items), but it was very good. My friend Sydney and I convinced them we seriously liked authentically spicy food, so they made our biryanis Indian-spicy, not American-spicy. Oh, and the six of us were the only people in the restaurant until three Russian men came in when we were halfway done eating. It was a little strange.
Sunday morning we drove to Uttar Pradesh, once again through a very foggy morning and
picturesque countryside. I wish we had had some time to walk around not in a city for a little while...it feels very dream-like knowing it's daytime but not being able to discern objects in the distance, or being able to see isolated objects amid the fog, like a tree or a hut. It's quite calming, and definitely a welcome break from the noise and dirt and chaos of Delhi. It's a shame that I had to experience it behind the window of a bus, but I guess it's better than nothing at this point. I know we're going on a "rural excursion" at some point in the not-so-distant future, so I'm sure I'll get that same sort of calm there, wherever there happens to be.En route to Bharatpur, we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, another fort, built by the emperor Akbar in 1569 and abandoned just fifteen years later because they ran out of water. (There are a few pictures on my flickr page of Fatehpur Sikri.) We were there before the tourist rush, so we got to climb around on our own for a while, which was really nice....a lot of it has been built up/preserved, but there are some sections more or less in ruins that were fun to explore. The buildings were all made of red sandstone and, like most of the other places built and inhabited by Moghul emperors, ornate and pretty.
We then continued on to Bharatpur, where we spent the afternoon in the Keoladeo Ghana National Park, a giant bird sanctuary spanning 29 square kilometers. We were supposed to go through it by cycle rickshaw, but at lunch we were informed there were other options, so nearly all of us opted to go by bicycle. In addition to thousands of birds (pelicans, storks, cranes, hawks, parakeets, ducks, and many many others whose names I do not know), I also came across lots of cows, a three-foot-lizard, a whole village of monkeys, some blue bull antelope, a jackal, and a wild pig. It was quite the adventure. We spent the night in the Ashok Forest Lodge inside the park, which was a little creepy because the jackals sounded like they were right outside our room. But when I went down to breakfast early the next morning, there was an antelope and two peacocks right outside the door to the dining room, just kind of hanging out on the patio.
These guys were following me around for a few minutes when I was going by all the monkeys. They're pretty much the most adorable creatures I've ever seen.
So Monday morning we got back on the train to return to Delhi, and everyone crashed when we finally arrived back at the residence. Tuesday night the nine of us in the residence decided we wanted to find someplace American to hang out and watch the inauguration. Our first thought was the Hyatt, but then we decided it might just be us and a bunch of rich white middle-aged people. So we changed plans and decided to go to T.G.I. Friday's. Turns out they really were having an inauguration party, and it was the craziest T.G.I. Friday's I've experienced. Red, white and blue balloons and miniature American flags EVERYWHERE, and all of the waiters wearing cowboy hats with a red, a white, and a blue balloon attached to the hat. It was pretty hilarious. And the whole event was made even funnier for us because we were certainly the only Americans there, and we were the only white people other than a group of four Irish boys who sat quietly drinking their beer. We, on the other hand, insisted that the tv get tuned to any channel with inauguration coverage beginning at 9:30 p.m. our time, and closer to the actual swearing-in, we requested that the dj (yes, they had a dj) stop until after Obama's speech was over. We figured it was okay because with the addition of a few homestay kids there were 13 of us and we were running up a huge bill, and we were upstairs, away from the people at the bar who probably didn't care about the inauguration. So that was pretty cool, and kind of strange to be so far away from where it was happening (I also had temporarily forgotten what the weather was like in D.C. and was laughing at all the people freezing their butts off). But I'm very glad we managed to get out and get most of our group together, even if we didn't find other Americans to be around.
This weekend is a long weekend for us before classes start, and our longest break of the semester (boo no spring break!), so everyone decided to go away to various places. I was going to go to Varanasi (formerly - well, I guess still sometimes - known as Benares) with my roommate and two other girls. We booked plane tickets late on Wednesday night, and then an hour into intensive Hindi, I got hit with a dizzy-and-nauseous spell, and I was sick all Thursday afternoon and evening. So Thursday night I cancelled my plane tickets, since being ill in a place where I literally only know three people and don't speak the language is not something high on my list of things to do in India. I'm the only one at home this weekend (aside from the staff here at the residence), but the down time has been really nice. I did all of my laundry, cleaned my room, took naps, went to the grocery store, and read my book. Today I finally feel back to normal, and I'm glad I stayed here - I think traveling would have made my recovery time much more drawn out. Cate, the program director, said she's going to bake a cake tomorrow, so I'm probably going to her house for tea and cake in the afternoon. I'm also job searching and studying Hindi, so I'm fairly busy for being more or less home alone. Oh, and I watched Lost. I decided I couldn't wait until I was home to watch the whole season. Only bad part is that abc.com doesn't let people in other countries view their streaming episodes, so I had to watch it in lower quality elsewhere. But I found it, and it worked, and it made me happy. :)
I think that's all the important stuff I have for now.
Namaste.
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