We woke up at 5 AM and got ready. Since we had not made any arrangement for the keys to the upstairs apartment (where we were staying) and didn’t want to wake up Rahul’s family, we were wondering what to do. Luckily, as we were heading out, his aunt from the third floor was heading out for a walk. We gave her the keys and asked her to give it to Usha later in the morning.
The drive to Agra was about 4 hours and it was about 10 AM when we got there. We picked up a guide along the way. It had apparently rained heavily in Agra the night before and the heat was oppressive. 44 C (about 112F) and humid. We had not had any breakfast and we headed right to the Taj for our tour. Since I didn’t bring my passport or Indian ID, we paid the “foreigner rate” for me. Kids under 15 are free, but we had a problem at the entrance when the guy would not believe that Sheila was under 15. We didn’t bring any ID, which posed a problem. He was convinced we were trying to cheat the system and after some arguing he finally gave in. Lesson learned – carry ID.
There was a “photographer” who inisisted he would give us a bunch of poses for a thousand ruppes and after some haggling, we agreed to get a package with about 30 photos (printed) and a CD with the digital shots for 2000 rupees. Somehow, these photographers have usurped the right to shoo people away from some of the good photo spots and place us there for a series of poses. It was almost like a modeling session, where he would position us at a spot and order certain specific poses while he clicked away. A couple of spots had other photographers waiting and we were getting a little impatient as we were spending more time being photographed than in touring the Taj. Finally, we told him we had had enough as Sheila was getting a little overheated. You won’t see a smile on her face in any of the photos.
As we were finally headed to the Taj, Sheila suddenly grabbed me and said she was going to faint. She showed symptoms of a heat stroke – she was dizzy and felt faint. We sat down on a bench in the shade (not much cooler) while the guide ran all the way back outside the Taj complex to grab us some water. He came back about 15 minutes later with a couple of bottles of cold water. Sheila took a few sips and after a bit felt good enough to continue the tour. She still kept feeling a little faint occasionally, so we cut the tour short and decided to head out for some food. In hindsight, this was probably no different from my experience running ten miles without having eaten much during the day. I almost collapsed from exhaustion on the walk back home after my run. We should have stopped for breakfast and carried a bottle of water with us. The guide took us to a restaurant where we ate some naan and butter chicken and got Sheila a couple of cans of Limca. She definitely felt better after lunch and we decided to visit one of those “inlay work demonstrations” (followed by a hard sell of some overpriced merchandise) and do an abbreviated tour of Agra Fort.
It was still hot and Sheila started feeling a bit sick again at Agra Fort, but the guide actually gave us a good “short” version of the tour where he just hit the highlights. It actually was a nicer tour even for me as it avoided some of the extended minutiae that knowledgeable guides sometimes bombard us with.
We were back in Delhi before 6 PM and we relaxed at Rahul’s place until we were picked up by Deepak’s daughter at about 8 PM. We enjoyed a relaxing evening at his place and went to bed after dinner at about 11:30 PM.
There was a “photographer” who inisisted he would give us a bunch of poses for a thousand ruppes and after some haggling, we agreed to get a package with about 30 photos (printed) and a CD with the digital shots for 2000 rupees. Somehow, these photographers have usurped the right to shoo people away from some of the good photo spots and place us there for a series of poses. It was almost like a modeling session, where he would position us at a spot and order certain specific poses while he clicked away. A couple of spots had other photographers waiting and we were getting a little impatient as we were spending more time being photographed than in touring the Taj. Finally, we told him we had had enough as Sheila was getting a little overheated. You won’t see a smile on her face in any of the photos.
As we were finally headed to the Taj, Sheila suddenly grabbed me and said she was going to faint. She showed symptoms of a heat stroke – she was dizzy and felt faint. We sat down on a bench in the shade (not much cooler) while the guide ran all the way back outside the Taj complex to grab us some water. He came back about 15 minutes later with a couple of bottles of cold water. Sheila took a few sips and after a bit felt good enough to continue the tour. She still kept feeling a little faint occasionally, so we cut the tour short and decided to head out for some food. In hindsight, this was probably no different from my experience running ten miles without having eaten much during the day. I almost collapsed from exhaustion on the walk back home after my run. We should have stopped for breakfast and carried a bottle of water with us. The guide took us to a restaurant where we ate some naan and butter chicken and got Sheila a couple of cans of Limca. She definitely felt better after lunch and we decided to visit one of those “inlay work demonstrations” (followed by a hard sell of some overpriced merchandise) and do an abbreviated tour of Agra Fort.
It was still hot and Sheila started feeling a bit sick again at Agra Fort, but the guide actually gave us a good “short” version of the tour where he just hit the highlights. It actually was a nicer tour even for me as it avoided some of the extended minutiae that knowledgeable guides sometimes bombard us with.
We were back in Delhi before 6 PM and we relaxed at Rahul’s place until we were picked up by Deepak’s daughter at about 8 PM. We enjoyed a relaxing evening at his place and went to bed after dinner at about 11:30 PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment