Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, and Camels!

Day 17 (Guidebook Day 17 – Led by Debra)

Maria had warned the girls of the group that it is not uncommon for men in Agra, Delhi, and other large Indian cities to be very inappropriate towards women and will sometimes grab them inappropriately just because they can. I had an experience like that first thing this morning. We were all heading out to go to the Taj Mahal at 5:30AM. I stopped for a moment to wait for people to catch up when an Indian man walked by and I felt a very obvious and very intentional ass-grab. I replied with a not-all-that-loud “What the f**k!?” directed his way, his only response being that he just stared at me as he kept walking away. I was unsure if a louder and more pissed off reaction would attract the wrong kind of attention, but I was later told that I should feel free to curse them out when they do such things. The whole thing just made me feel gross.

Something interesting that helps to deal with these types of behavior is the “women only” cars in the metro trains. The first car of each train in Delhi is for women only, and any man to step into this car will be met with nasty looks from the women in the car. I’ve seen it. Although I think it’s sad that it needs to come to that, I’ll be honest, I felt much better in the women only cars – especially when the cars were super crowded

So, the Taj Mahal this morning was EPIC.

Then we went to Fatehpur Sikri, a town built in 1571 by Mughal Emperor, Akbar. He had planned the city as his capital but shortage of water compelled him to the abandon the city. So now, the “city” is a tourist attraction.

It was an odd place because, although it was an abandoned city, it was filled with people, plenty of them beggars. So many beggars have never approached me in my life. The children will come up to you and ask you for money. If you say no, they just ask again. It sometimes takes minutes for them to leave. Although I feel bad about ignoring the kids (and the adults, too), there’s not much else you can really do. You can’t exactly give money to every beggar, especially at this site. You’d go broke in no time.

We ended the day with Agra Fort. You can get a good alternative view of the Taj from there.

While at the fort, groups of Indian men kept coming up to us to take a picture with us. They would just come on up to us and say “group picture”, or “just one picture”, and they would group around us before we could even reply. Since people kept insisting on this, I decided “Fine, but I’m getting one, too!” I mostly just think it’s hilarious.

Streets of Agra:

  

Right now I’m on a train heading back to Delhi. Tomorrow is my last day in India, with my plane taking off at 11:45 PM. I’ve had a fantastic time, but I am also extremely ready to be back home.

Sad note of the day, my camera lens is busted. It has been slowly falling apart for a while now. It started months ago as just being a bit “sticky” at a particular spot when zooming in and out. It turned from sticky to very difficult. Then, a few days ago, it stopped auto-focusing half of the time. When I took the lens off the camera body to inspect it, I noticed a piece of plastic fall to the ground. Since then, the lens was just less well attached to the camera body. Tonight, though, it became obvious that it just did not want to stay attached at all. Time for a new lens!

Today we took a train from Agra to Delhi.