Delhi Trip

I have just returned from a trip to Delhi and Agra over the weekend. It was truly an amazing few days. A lot of it was spent traveling, but it was worth it. We started out in the middle of the night on Thursday and left Chennai early Friday morning. We flew to Delhi, where we first took a bicycle rickshaw ride through old Delhi. We stopped at the spice market and chile market, both of which smelled wonderful. I purchased a few spices, including some wonderful-smelling cinnamon. I can understand why Christoper Colombus wanted to travel to India to purchase spices. Then, back on to the bicycle rickshaws. They were quite a wild ride, but a lot of fun. We were able to go through back streets in old Delhi that would have been impossible with most modes of travel – walking, bicycle, bicycle rickshaw, or “scooties” – motorbikes – are the only possibilities. Then we had lunch at a very tasty Indian restaurant. Excellent curries, nan, and all kinds of good things. Outside, there was a snake charmer. He had a green rat snake in one basket and a cobra in the other. He played the traditional instrument to “charm” the snakes. I know that the music doesn’t matter so much as the motion, but it was still neat to see. He was making money by convincing us tourists to take pictures with him and his snakes. I did fine with the rat snake, but when he opened the cobra basket and it popped up and flared out its head, I was definitely startled. After lunch, we all piled on the bus for the six-hour trip to Agra. We stopped at a McDonald’s on the way. It was interesting to see the menu of an Indian McDonald’s, which serves no beef or pork. There were chicken and fish sandwiches and a veggie burger.

In Agra, we checked into the hotel. It was wonderful – real showers, not buckets, double beds, only three to a room, western-style toilets – pure luxury. Also, the staff was very attentive. They welcomed us to the hotel with cool washcloths and guava juice. Then, they wouldn’t let us take our luggage to our rooms – they delivered it shortly after we went up. We slept for about four or five hours, and were up in time to leave for the Taj Mahal at 5 am. The idea behind this is that when the sun comes up, the mausoleum is beautiful, because the translucent white marble reflects the colors and changes throughout the day, but is very beautiful in the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was foggy, so we didn’t get this effect. Even so, the Taj Mahal was incredible. It is huge, but at the same time it feels so delicate because of its incredibly intricate carving and inlay work. The emperor who built it for his wife’s tomb wanted its beauty to last, so instead of paintings, it is inlaid with tiny pieces of semi-precious stones making absolutely beautiful flower decorations. Also fascinating were the Koran verses inscribed in calligraphy. The letters appear to be all the same size as you look at them from the ground, but in reality they are much bigger at the top and get smaller as they get closer to you. What mathematics that must have taken to create this illusion! A beautiful red sandstone mosque is built on one side of the mausoleum and, to preserve the perfect symmetry of the Taj Mahal, another identical building is on the other side, facing the opposite direction. It could never be used as a mosque because it is facing the wrong direction, nor could it be used for a palace or anything else, because no one could live next to the mausoleum, so it was built just to preserve the symmetry. The unity of the entire complex was amazing. It was definitely awe-inspiring. I understood why it is a wonder of the world.
After the Taj Mahal, we had a nice breakfast at the hotel’s breakfast buffet, then headed out to see the Red Fort, which was also quite something. We saw where several of the Mogul emperors lived. One of the more interesting places was the harem, where all the concubines lived. There were some nice balconies there to catch the air, as well as a 400-year-old “Jacuzzi” that the concubines could sit in. One of the emperors, we were told, had more than 500 concubines. It was interesting to imagine what the place would have been like when the emperors lived there.

Next, we visited a rug factory and a marble factory. In Agra, it is against the law to use machines – everything must be done by hand. This allows the artisans to continue to work. It was amazing to see the people work in the same way that they have been doing for hundreds of years. At the rug factory, men worked to tie tiny knots. They were so quick, that they could tie several hundred thousand knots in a days work. They memorized the patterns during their apprenticeships, and they’d sing out the patterns to their partners, who would sing them back, to ensure that they were keeping everything perfectly symmetrical. At the marble factory, the descendants of the people who did the inlay work on the Taj Mahal work on the same marble, with the same semi-precious stones, to make smaller works. They shape tiny bits of semi-precious stones on a wheel that they work by hand. They arrange them on the translucent marble – the same kind that the Taj Mahal is made of – and scratch around them. The marble is dyed with henna so that they can see. They scratch a place for the stones, and then glue them in with a secret glue recipe. Watching both processes, done by hand, was amazing. These are true works of art.

Dinner was pizza at Pizza Hut. Some of the pizzas were Indian (chicken tikka masala pizza, etc.), but most of us were missing American food, so we went for pepperoni. It was great.

The next day, we headed back to Delhi, but we stopped on the way for elephant rides. Then, on to Delhi, a short stop at an outdoor mall for lunch and shopping, and back to the plane for the flight back to Chennai. We arrived back at Rising Star around midnight on Sunday. It was a lot of traveling, but it was worth it. It was truly an amazing trip.