Day 2: The Road to Agra and the Taj

Tour Guide Saurav (Sam) Somani, left, Carl Lindquist, Shenetta Payne, Kalee Haywood, Sara E. McNeil and Kate Zibluk leave the gateway of Emperor Akbar's tomb in Agra.

The five-hour drive from Delhi to Agra was itself an adventure.

The Delhi suburbs sprawl on for 40 miles as with New York or Chicago/ But American cities don’t have loose water buffalo and traffic going both ways in one lane.

The landscape of small stands and shops, some with electricity, some not, with dirty stands and stalls next to luxury auto dealerships, goes on and on, slowly giving way to  open fields.

But the crowds never really go away, not for 200 miles. The road in both, or all three or four directions, is full of trucks and three-wheeled cars and bicycles and motorcycles and pushcarts and rickshaws. There is no speed limit, but given the crowds, 40 miles an hour is equivalent to the German Autobahn, where they go more than 100 miles an hour.

A driver's-eye view of traffic in India. The truck in front of us was full of passengers near Agra.

They carry everything: wood, cement, eggs, recently harvested wheat, and people. A dozen or more people clamor onto the back of many trucks to get to work, or just out of town.

At intersections and rest stops, hawkers and beggars abound They knock on car windows with trinkets, cards, games, feathers…..anything. And if you take their picture, they expect 10 rupees, about 50 cents.

Sam, our guide, is friendly to them, but he advises us to ignore them, lest we be swamped with requests. Our Hindi lesson Monday included about five wsys to say no, but in general we ignored them.

A roadside merchant uses a monkey to do his marketing midway between Delhi and Agra.

A blind beggar sells jewelry at carside at Akbar's tomb.

A beggar girl stares at Kate Zibluk, who examines a jade necklace purchased from the girl's family.

Upon our entrance to Agra, we toured the tomb of Akbar, the grandfather of the builder of the Taj Mahal. The huge site was a quiet respite from the road. From there we checked into a luxurious-looking hotel, in which the electricity and the internet connection was sporadic.

A boy enjoys the shade at Akbar's tomb.

A Hindu woman uses a parasol to shade herself from the sun and 100-degree heat at Akbar's tomb.

Then we explored the Agra Fort, another Mogul monument, and at two miles in circumference, one of the biggest. The fort was a palace full of private quarters for harems and soldiers in its day. It was full of gardens and courtyards. It was the cite of riots in the 1857 Sepoy rebellion against the British. The Sepoys, were Muslim mercenaries, and when they found the British used pork grease to lubricate gun cartridges, they thought the practice defiled their religion. The practice set off a nationwide rebellion with many casualties on both sides.

But today, it is mostly filled with Indian tourists, proud of their own memories and the ability of their own people to build massive monuments, whether they were Moslem or Hindu. In the 100-plus degree heat, the tourists came in droves. We were among the few non-Asians there, and the Indians often asked us to sit in ith them as they took family pictures.

We were honoring their past along with them and they took pride that we bothered to do so as well. As a person of partially English descent, the irony wasn’t lost on me.

As we explored the fort, we could catch in the distance the Taj Mahal, and that awaited us in the morning.