Pooper Scoopers: India Day 7

Well, it's that time again...waking up at butt crack of dawn's butt crack. This time to the last point of the golden triangle - Agra. So, we met up with our bus at 6am for the drive. This drive was not like the other drives. First of all, the bus was so cold, I thought I would shiver out of my boots. And second, the traffic was so bad, I thought I would cry, except I was shivering so bad it was hard to cry, but the tears would have frozen on my face anyways.
Our first stop, as usual was breakfast at the very fancy New Maharajas Hotel - complete with dancing monkeys and expensive crappy trinkets. I had this random egg scramble dish that was pretty taste-less. First crap food I've had in India.

Then back onto the bus for another tortuous few hours to Agra - it didn't help that it rained on and off during this whole drive. There we picked up our guide and headed to the long awaited Taj Mahal. We aren't allowed to drive cars in due to pollution, so we had to park nearby and take the golf carts and horses and stuff in. Security was tight and pretty much nothing is allowed in - they pulled the instant noodles from a girl's bag and wouldn't give it back to her...

There we are...one happy group!
The guide was most informative of the Taj. And while we were talking, it started to pour! So, we went to hide. Too bad the sun was not out as we couldn't see it shine through the translucent marble and awe at it's shimmering beauty, but, you take what you can get.

Here's what it looks like without retards in front of it.
We went inside to take a gander at the tomb. Because it was cloudy it was pitch black in there and hordes of people with guards whistling at you to move along in a little circle. It was kind of spooky. I felt like I was walking into the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and at the end of my walk, there would be a car waiting me to take me into the ride. But the marble work, was very impressive. Go Mugols and your craftiness!
On the way out we opted to take the horse drawn carriage to our bus. Here is where I lost my sunglasses. Let's take a second to mourn....

Okay, so horse drawn carriages. Our horses tried to race each other. I felt bad for the guys whacking the poor think horses. Let's take another second to feel sad....
Okay. Back to the bus and onto our next site - Agra Fort. I have to say, I do like this fort. Even though wherever we went, people were staring at us and surreptitiously taking our pictures, like we can't see the camera following our movements. Come on people. Hold the camera at your chest again, shoot up and hope you capture the freak Asian group with the one token white boy!

I just felt the fort was very roomy, even though you know, it housed many people and was used for protection and stuff.

Like this squirrel....protecting his tree from other deadly things...like other squirrels. Actually, the squirrels in this compound were EXTREMELY friendly. They would come right up to your foot and beg.

View of the Taj from the fort. Pretty.

When you need a bath, you need a bath. Though, you can't really tell, this is Miss B trying to climb into the HUGE bathtub of the king...even though it was surrounded by a gate...what's a gate when you desperately need a bath?
Then off the lunch! Good India food. Enough said. Nom nom nom. Has everyone been eating as much Indian food as I have and getting fat with me? There is only one answer to that question.

Then, as due to traffic and the need to be back in time for our friend's wedding event, we had to skip going to our next site and we opted to stop really quick at Akbar's Tomb in Sikandara - but just the outside. Here's a picture. It's fuzzy because the cold bus + humid weather kept on fogging my camera.

Then back onto the bus where I work on getting frostbite on my extremities - especially my nose. We finally make it back to the hotel where we are already 2 hours late for the event - Mehendi Night. We all quickly get ready. My extremely hot shower still did not abate the frost in my face....
Here is probably the most embarassing picture of me wearing my Kurta, which is borrowed from a friend. Number 1: The MC Hammer pants kept on tripping me up. HAMMER TIME! Number 2: The right side of the blouse was not sewn up. It's only held together by two small safety pins and it was quite....breezy.

We get ready, get into a cab, which, like all cabs in India, has no idea where it's going. We had negotiated a good price with one driver and the other driver was pissed off. One driver was calling the other drive Bin Laden and everything was a mess.
We did eventually arrive at Cherish Banquets where we were super late, but they filmed us coming in and getting greeted. Then we all quickly chowed down on the vegetarian buffet. FOOOOD!

My dessert plate.
We were so late, that we didn't have time to meet with the choreographer to learn our dance, which we rescheduled for tomorrow. We only had time for food and of course...for henna. By the way, I smell like Henna and Indian water...it's not a pleasant smell, let me tell you...

So, since we were late, we sat around and got to chitchat with the bride, while taxi's were called for us and of course they were getting lost, so we had to wait around for quite awhile. So, our instructions were - no washing with water until the morning. When the henna dries, we can use lemon to help us take it off and make the ink shine. And to sleep with socks on our hands to keep them warm.
The cab came, but only one cab. So all 6 of us jammed in. I was pretty much sitting on my side, but I wasn't going anywhere because the end of my scarf was stuck in the car door. Fun times. At least it was a quick short ride to the hotel.
We got some lemon and tried to get the henna off. But then we just got impatient and washed it off in the sink. It's hard to get off! I used a hotel toothbrush to scrubby my hands. And we went to bed without wrapping our hands. Good times.