As we took a seat in the restaurant and went to use the toilets, both Charles and Chris asked for TP to brave the dirty men's restroom. Taking one look at the cups, we decided to just drink our water from the water bottles directly instead of pouring them into the cups. That should have warned us of the impending bathroom trips we'd have to take due to this restaurant! We ordered Chicken Tikka Masala (yum!), a Chicken Kebab and a Chicken Fried Rice and a garlic naan. The food was good enough and we set off to finish our journey to Agra. On the way we passed by all sorts of vehicles, toot-toots (make shift cars filled with as many as 15 passengers! Wells saw one with 5 people sitting on the roof!), elephants!, camels, goats, cows, water buffalo, horses, horse and carriages, mini trucks and mini cars. I think our mini-van was the largest regular mode of transportation there was! When we made another stop 45 minutes later and our driver got out to "pay the toll" things got scary! A bunch of monkeys came up to us from the left side of the window. Me, being the stupid tourist that I am, took out my camera and took a picture of Charles and the window hoping to get a good picture of the monkeys. After I took one I realized this probably was not a good idea because A minute later an angry man demanded money from us for the picture that I took yelling, "Money! That lady took a picture of my monkey, give me Money!" He even tried to open the doors next to us and ended up opening the front door next to Wells. Wells tried to calm him down and said lets talk like men, you don't need to yell but the man continued to yell and demand money. I decided to give him 10 RB hoping that he'd just leave but he demanded he wanted 100. After realizing that I didn't even get a picture with the monkeys I refused to give any more money. He pleaded with us telling us he's a poor man realizing that we're not going to give him money for the picture. Thankfully our driver came back and we left the toll unharmed and only 10 RB less than we started with.
We finally made it to Agra to our hotel, the JayPee Palace Hotel and Convention Center, a super long two floor hotel with rooms and amentities spanning 25 acres! We drank some lime juice as our welcome drink and made the what seemed like 15 minute walk to our hotel rooms. Putting our stuff down and using the bathroom again (remember, bombay tummy!) we set out to go to the Taj Mahal! Our tour guide Ragu (pronounced Roger) picked us up from the airport and along with our driver took us to the Taj. He started giving us a speech about how there are two types of people in the world, those who have seen the Taj and those who haven't and right now we're part of those who haven't but pretty soon we'll be part of those who have! We got to the Taj Mahal Tourist office where we paid 750 RB (around $15 US) each for entrance fee and we each received a bag filled with a water bottle and shoe covers. We paid an additional 20 RB to be driven to the Taj in a large un-airconditioned van. Ragu warned us about hagglers and to keep "stone faced" as we walked, telling us that all the things that they sell on the side of the street next to the Taj are fakes or very bad quality. We walked out stone facing our way to the security check point where the guys and the girls split up once again for security. They made me throw out a new pack of Eclipse gum because no food is allowed at the Taj.
The Taj itself was beautiful. As you get closer and closer you see just how grand it really is. We sat and learned a little bit about the history of the Taj, about how it was made as a loving monument to a dead wife and both the husband and the wife are buried inside. We were warned again about pickpocketers especially inside the Taj when we look at the tombs. We were given 45 minutes to walk around and take pictures. Two Indian men approached Wells and asked if they could take pictures with him. They each took turns taking a picture with him. Hilarious.
We also stopped by a factory where they made marble tables and figurines with the precious stones inside. Our tour guide told us that the owners of this factory are actually descendants of the people who built the Taj and created these figurines in the same way as the Taj was created. The sketchiest part of this was when the worker told us that he wanted to show us something that was "not for sale." I'm not sure why but we all followed him into the sketchy elevator up one flight. I was sure that we'd be sold or something! We were brought to a large Taj Mahal replica which he told us was the second largest Taj Mahal in the world. We walked around quickly knowing that we didn't want to purchase anything there. Next our tour guide brought us to the Agra Fort. On they way to the fort we were texting with Ravi asking him how much to pay our tour guide. Ravi replied that he never organized a tour guide for us and often times people pretend they are and then change ridiculously high prices so be careful. We all sat looking at each other in the car, unsure of what to do and unsure of what was going on. We found out soon that Ravi's family friend had organized the tour guide for us and we had to pay him 1200 RB for the day of sight seeing. Relieved but also freaked out, we asked to be brought back to our hotel. We spent the rest of the evening at the swimming pool and then split up again to enjoy the Turkish bath, sauna and jacuzzi.
Later that evening we took a hotel taxi to the Sheraton so we could eat at their buffet. We were all so excited to see non-Indian cusine and the large array of desserts. We ate our most expensive meal here on the trip, including drips equivalent to about $25 US! Not bad for the most expensive meal at all! We took a taxi back and called it an evening. That was enough fun for the day.
Twenty minutes later I found a lizard in our room on the wall. We called over the rest of the boys and we spent the next 15 minutes trying to move the lizard into a bag or out in the hallway. Finally we cajoled the lizard into the hallway where it moved into the room next to us. Wells yelled close your doors quick! and we both stuffed the bottom of our doors with towels so the lizard could not come back in. Fun times.
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