Agra:Touts, Taj, and Taxis

There are some posts that are filled with words, there are some that well... aren't. This is one of the latter posts. Also just to give you some information about Agra there isn't tons to write. The city itself is a place of urban sprawl and annoying touts and sellers. It wasn't a place I'd want to spend much time and aside from "the Taj" (as the Taj Mahal is known) I wouldn't find the place worth spending time in.


See the rest...

The touts and sellers were some of the most annoying so far. They don't like hearing "no" and were everywhere. Shops lined most of the streets and most of those shops sell the same low quality crap (Sir sir! Mini-taj, Mini-taj? Only best quality here, best quality (mind you the item I'm being shown is cheap plastic). Then there are the rickshaw wallahs (a wallah means person. So there are rickshaw wallahs, t-shirt wallahs, wallahs, drug wallahs, etc...) who try to elbow each other out of the way for business and were the most concentrated we've seen so far. The continual for a ride got so bad that I started counting and in one 15 minute period I was solicited for a rickshaw/camel/horse cart/auto 28 times! What is even more fun is that while this sounds like simply one every thirty seconds but it was more like a flurry of 5 wallahs at a time and then a minute or two of silence. But as it is the Taj is beautiful and despite the hassle and the cost I have thought it was worth it (though barely). I feel like it's one of those places that if I hadn't seen I would have been disappointed. Anyway, enough rambling and time for the pictures! (Needless to say some of these will take some explaining but alot of them are simply pictures around the Taj. For those of you who want more information look here... no point in reinventing the wheel after all...)

We need at least one Bird picture right? Though Megan kept being afraid that we would forget him back at the hotel.

A profile of the Taj and Megan. It is a symmetrical building, so it looks the same from any of the four sides (with the exception of an open or shut door).

I don't think the picture accurately shows it but this is a potato chip wallah. He walks around selling them from the massive pile on his hand cart.

Our dinner before catching our train out. The man wasn't sure what to do with us, so he sat us down behind his place and fed us. All in all not bad food, we were afraid that we'd spend the next day with our bowels hating us but it all worked out just fine.

P.S. One more Bird picture, why not?

P.P.S. The Taj is bloody expensive. Like most things in India there is the local price and the foreigner price (Indians seem to think I love to be parted from my cash). The local price is 20 rupees (50 cents) the foriegner price is 750 rupees (18.70 cents). That's a mark up of nearly % 400! Crazy... but still we paid, it is the Taj after all.