Despite the shaky beginnings to David’s 36th, it certainly ended with positive India karma. There was the visit to the ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri and then the final jaunt to the rat-hole that is Agra, although fortunately our hole had a little oasis called the Taj View Hotel. It was a great old hotel, with staff that treated David like a king on his birthday—with a bouquet of fresh flowers, a chocolate cake on the house, flower garlands and with literally every staff member approaching us with a happy birthday message. We even had a view of the Taj Mahal from our window.
So, to hell with endless sightseeing — we decided to soak up being tourists the old fashioned way and stayed within the romantic grandeur of the hotel walls for the rest of the afternoon—massages, cocktails at the hotel bar, dinner in the restaurant. It was all quite lovely; we even had a bottle of the Sula Merlot, an Indian wine, for dinner and all in it couldn’t have been nicer. The coolest part was our visit to the hotel’s astrologer who had truly an uncanny knack for reading palms and our star charts. Sounds completely corny but the things he told us about ourselves was completely spot on. I actually have been thinking a lot about what he said today about myself, about David, about our families. Has given me quite a pause I must admit.
Then today—the Taj. What a sight to behold. I’m not even sure how to describe it except to say it is all that it is hyped up to be. Link to Seven Wonders of the World. Marvelous, semi-translucent marble scraping the blue sky—unbelievable. And while not as beautiful, the Agra Fort in its red sandstone grandeur was a sight to see as well. We had a great guide who helped explain the differences between Muslim (lines, symmetry) and Hindu (flowers, animals) architecture and the human Parchesi games the king would play with his servants.
Tonight we got to Delhi—last 2 nights in India although we nearly did not thanks to our car breaking down in the middle of an Indian highway. If you have never been on an Indian highway, you have no sense of what this means, but essentially getting out to push requires dodging cows, bikes, motorcyles, people, trucks and cars driving both ways with no street lights.
Anyway, I think I am ready to go home I think but not quite sure about the facing of reality part.
Time to sleep now.
