Uh Oh....

Trip Start Dec 08, 2008

Trip End Dec 24, 2008

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Flag of India Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Friday, December 12, 2008

There are some days in life that will take more time to describe that you actually spent doing.... today was one of those days... so the multiple posts for today are really just some notes so I don't forget all the things I want to write about. (this post is 1 of 3 about this crazy day)

Morning phonecall from taxi at 4:30 am, it was scheduled for 6:00 but whatever. Rebecca freaks out. Start doubting what time it actually is.

Get packed up and ready for the day, go out and no driver in the cab, call him and he jumps up in the back seat.

Ride to the train station, complete chaos. Ticket or no ticket needed? Find a tiny little cafe where people are seated and eating

Our train window

. We get a couple of samosas, and try to find a place to eat. A nice young guy motions for us to take a seat, we strike up a conversation and discover his name is [] and he is a military officer
Wander around trying to find platform, eventually find it. Rebecca's nice bit of local flavor discovered on the tracks... lets just say it smells... really bad.
We find our carriage and our seats, sit down and wait to start.

Partway through the trip we start up conversation with the family seated across from us. From australia, born in India, haven't been to the Taj since he was 15. Taking his kids for the first time.

Almost there, we get a call from Bindu, telling us that the Taj is closed today because it is a Muslim holy day. Uh oh.... what are we going to do?

Off the train, even more chaos, in addition to all the high-pressure Taxi men... Bindu calls, tells us to go to the Mughal Sheriton and have a cup of tea or walk the grounds while we wait for an arranged car to take us to a place called "Fatehpur Seekri", which I've never ever heard of in all my reading about India. Ok, I'll just trust her that it's worth going to. Car service calls and tells us it will be about an hour, so we sit down for a giant wonderful buffet. Then the actual driver calls and says he'll be there in 20 minutes. We eat fast and head out.