INDIA!: North Tour Part Seven; Argra (Taj Mahal and monkey business)

Leaving Delhi we were woken up at 4 in the morning by a hotel worker bringing us chai in our rooms before we headed to the train station. We took a commuter/ tourist train to Agra a few hours away. Amanda and I occupied our time by doing sudoko and cross word puzzles in the provided newspapers. Upon arrival, we went straight to Agra's main attraction, the Taj Mahal where we spent two hours wandering around. Most of that time was spent fooling around taking pictures and sitting on the cool marble in the shadow of the Taj. Again, the Taj Mahal excited Amanda a lot because of her Mughal obsession.

To be honest, the Taj Mahal was not the most exciting thing we saw of did on the tour. It's a world famous sight and a person visiting India is expected to see it. The whole building is exactly symmetrical and the inlaid work is extremely detailed but the inside was dark and the decoration was by far not the most awesome that we saw on the tour. We once asked our tour guide, RK what his least favorite part of the tour was and his answer was Agra. He dislikes the city and the crowdedness, has seen the Taj Mahal dozens of times, and says there aren't many other sights worth seeing in Agra so when asked which city he'd cut out of the tour if he could he immediately said Agra.

I think what's amazing about the Taj Mahal is its architecture combined with it's history. The Taj is a tomb for a Mughal empress who died giving birth to her 14th child. Her husband built had the Taj Mahal built in her honor out of white marble and intended to have an identical one of black marble built for himself. However, he was over thrown by a son and held captive until his death and his tomb was never built. The empress isn't actually buried in the Taj it was built to honor her but also as a decoy for enemies of the empire.

Everyone was very tired by midday and when we stopped for lunch I actually dozed off at the table. Our other stop of the day was Agra Fort another relic of the Mughal Empire. The fort tour took less than an hour so we had much time to kill before we had to be at the train station at 11. We chose a grassy spot near the exit of the fort to relax. We played games, chatted and slept for a few hours.

At one point, I was sitting with a few friends on a concrete ledge talking when a group of monkeys wandered by. We'd seen the monkeys all afternoon and had been watching them for a little bit as I'm sure they'd been watching us so were not at all fazed when the came near us. Jordan had a tuft of grass in his hand and decided to see if the monkey would come near and eat it. When it didn't he tossed the grass away lightly in the direction of the monkey. Up until now, the monkey had been indifferent to our actions. All of a sudden it took offense and jumped on all fours baring its teeth and hissing, not at Jordan, but at me who was sitting next to him. Everyone else backed away but every time I moved it lunged closer. I finally got up and walked a little ways away keeping an eye on the monkey who made a beeline for my purse which I'd left lying on the ground. I tried to shoo it but that just made the monkey more upset. Instead of taking my whole purse, which I was afraid it would, the monkey sat down, opened it, and started rummaging through it. At this point we were all laughing hysterically despite the situation. I was also a little worried. I had two cameras, my wallet, cell phone, i-pod, and passport in my purse. Instead of going for any of those things, the monkey pulled out a paper wrapped marble inlaid box that I'd just bought. In one more attempt to get him to leave my things alone I threw my scarf at the monkey which just got tangled in its legs as it ran away.

Once the monkey was free of my scarf he ran away box still in hand. Several meters away, he sat down looked at me and began unwrapping the box as he would a banana of other fruit. Once the box was unwrapped the monkey looked at it confused once it assured that it wasn't edible left it. Before one of us could retrieve the box another monkey ran up and grabbed my box and looking at it, decided it might be food so to test this theory he tried to take a bite of it. On begin unable to eat the hard marble he dropped it and all the monkeys ran away. So now I have a marble box with monkey teeth marks and a scarf covered in monkey germs that doesn't wash... as well as a good story to tell when I get home.