Traveling to the TAJ

The trip to Agra is four hours from Delhi. Sleep in the car? Not on this trip.

I am going to write about what I saw yesterday on my journey to the Taj then I will show you how beautiful it is in my next entry...in an attempt to separate the two worlds that you experience on this trek. India is India, there is a new surprise around every corner.

Our driver arrived to fetch us at 7am..early considering we were delayed by the combination of rains in Bangalore and a helicopter accident closing one of the runways making us arrive very late to Delhi.

One of the first things we noticed on our drive was the dramatic increase in soot in the air. Delhi seems much dirtier than last year. It reminds me of the old movies about London when they employed burning gas lights, there is a haze over everything. I traveled to London with my family a few years back and they spoke of how dirty the air was during this time....not only can I imagine it..I have experienced it first hand. You know the air is dirty when you feel it on your teeth.

Camels....carrying everything you can imagine...more specifically, rice, dirt, beans, wheat...placing a new perspective on the indian rice I purchase from my local Indian store.



People are using animals to move everything here. Rocks, people, stacks of silk(I wanted to reach out and grab some brightly colored scarves), boxes full of televisions (NEW!)...bicycles, animals and people pulling carts all working to move everything everywhere.




And all of this is experienced while passing through extreme poverty on each side of the road.







And then the farms coming rolling in where people are growing rice and living in mud huts...just like this one.




And finally we arrive in Agra...and head to pick up our guide...