Leaving Agra and Delhi

The hotel I stayed at last night was really nice. Great food too. I wish I could have relaxed a bit in the pool, but India awaits!

First thing this morning I go to Agra Fort. This huge fort has some really amazing white marble buildings inside it too. Not surprising since they were build by Shah Jahan, similar to the Taj. There are some great views of the Taj from a distance here. I take a couple of good photos with a monkey and Taj in the background.

Afterwards I head out for Delhi. On the outskirts of the city the driver has one more place he says I should see, that I hadn't even planned on. Akbar's Tomb is in the center of a large open garden. There are deer grazing and peacocks and a bunch of monkeys! I even get to feed them here. So great! I could photo them for hours, but my memory cars are getting full. Bummer! The tomb itself is down a dark tunnel inside another very intricately designed red-sandstone and white marble structure.

Then we make the 5 hour drive to Delhi. On the south side of Delhi I stop at Qutb Minar. This is a 75m tall spire that the muslims built out of destroyed Hindu temples. It is very impressive in its detail and size. There is also the beginnings of a second tower that had the plan of being twice as big, but when the ruler planning its construction died, no one wanted to continue with the crazy idea! Here I have 2 separate groups of people want to take my photo! It was very strange but I learn later that they probably were just tourists like me. They come from the more rural places in India and have never seen a white person before! Here I am an alien :)

I stop at another tomb, Safdarjang's on the way into Delhi. Then I go to the hotel and drop off my things. The hotel here is terrible and I don't want to spend anymore time than necessary, so I leave right away to do some shopping. In the center of Delhi is a series of concentric circular roads with many shops. So I wander around here, even stumbling into and underground bazarre where everyone and there mother wanted me to go into their shop. Here I feel like a celebrity!


After having a nice dinner, buying some souvenirs and chatting with some locals, I head back to the hotel. Now this hotel is definitely the worst I have ever been in. When I first arrived there was not any sheets on the bed, just a folded up blanket. So I asked for sheets and the guy looked at me like he never had heard of such a request. I argued a bit with him, but he still insisted they did not have any sheets! So now when I came back there was a different guy there so I asked him for one and he said "sure no problem", so I figured everything would be all right. WRONG! So I am waiting for him to come back and I notice the sink in the bathroom is running, so I try to turn off the facet, but no luck. I start to jiggle the spout a little and it breaks off in my hand! Now water is gurgling up fro the broken spout... I point it out to the guy when he comes back and says they will fix it in the morning!! I am exhausted so I just concede and try to go to bed. I take the sheet he gave me and open it up... The most disgusting sheet you can imagine lies before me. Nasty spots all over it... I am so grossed out by this I just want to go home now... So to get through the night I get fully dressed and try to lay without moving... I eventually fall asleep... but it gets worse! About 3 in the morning the shower starts running very loudly. I stumble in there to figure out how to stop it. There are 2 handles for the shower, 2 for the sink and 2 under the sink. I twist and turn all 6 in every combination I can think of in my half asleep stuper and eventually it stops running. I stumble back to bed and manage to fall asleep for 15 minutes until it starts up again... This repeats itself a couple more times until I manage to get it to stop. Every time going in there I have to step on the nasty wet floor, since water is going everywhere by now, with my bare feet. I am so uncomfortable!