We woke up at 5am in Pune, our day's end destination Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.
Where Are All the Ubers?
We’d been spoiled during our four days in Pune, with access to our hosts' drivers. They understandably weren't working during our early AM flight, so we headed out to the street to find an Uber for the 25 minute ride to the airport. We were somewhat surprised that there weren't many. We had trouble connecting to a driver, we had one and it dropped...we were starting to worry. This was not a spot where cabs were rolling by. Finally, we got one and were on our way to the airport.
Total Uber cost = $2.70 USD.
Smog Delay
Prominent in the international news at the moment is the gross amount of smog in Delhi. So bad in fact, it was widely reported last week they had to cancel flights as a result. We ended up circling for a bit after the pilot came on the radio to announce a delay due to "visibility". It was a short delay and before we knew it, we had landed.
Lunch
We had a 4 hour drive ahead of us to Agra, so we stopped for a quick lunch before hitting the road. There were a few chains in the airport and side by side were a 'fast food' Indian Dosa spot and Subway. Without hesitation, the girls picked the Dosas - fresh off their introduction yesterday during lunch in Pune. The girls continue their international eat-a-thon. We're proud parents.
8 Person Tour
We booked a private transit and tour directly from the airport. We were met by someone with the tour company who asked when he saw us, where are the other four? No big deal, but as a result we ended up with an almost small bus for our transit which was comfortable.
A Mouse!
While we were all doing our thing, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a little mouse in the van. I thought it best to not cause a riot so I kept it to myself, planning to let the driver know when we arrived so he could take care of it overnight. That backfired!
20 minutes later, a scream from Sarah and her laptop hit the floor! The mouse ran right across her stomach while she was typing away! Sarah handled it great, but there were a few minutes of "elephants on a small chair" in the van.
Stop Looking at Your Phone
We noticed our driver, Mr. Singh, was looking at his phone quite a bit while driving. During a rest stop, I pulled him aside and told him we noticed and it was making us nervous. He apologized and there was no problem the rest of the ride.
Agra - The Real Real India?
As soon as we hit Agra we were in a different India than Pune. Pune is green, full of trees and not touristy. Agra is much more Delhi-like, rough around the edges, of course catering to the tourist trade, etc. We were all glued to our windows watching all the street stalls and interesting people. In a 5 minute stretch we saw...
Water Buffalo
Monkeys
Pigs
Cows
Goats
In the streets and sidewalks!
Sadie turned to us as sensory overload of a type was kicking in and asked us, "Is the the REAL REAL India?"
Hello Taj
We arrived in Agra just after 4pm, which was too late to visit any of the main sites, as they all shut at just before 5pm. We did a quick stop at the Moon Gardens across the river for a first view of the Taj at sunset. It's the same view I saw in 2003 when I visited while playing a tennis tournament in Delhi. I visited on a Friday when it was closed; I got no closer then than we did today.
It really is a site to be seen and we'll be up at 5:30am tomorrow morning to visit the Taj during sunrise. More on our impressions of the Taj in an upcoming post.
A Bad Dinner
We stopped at a spot I'd found while running some searches for a dinner spot. I was simply looking for a place with good reviews, clean, but nothing fancy. Basically, just a hedge against the famous 'Delhi-Belly". The food ended up OK, but bad service was layered on top to make it a ho-hum dinner. Considering how long we've been on the road, we've had very few 'ho-hums'.
Time for Bed
I'm writing this from our hotel at 10:00pm, just about to hit the sac.
5:00am alarm set to visit the Taj...
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