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On the Road to Agra with Mr. Dutt
10 February 2007
Agra Road, India
Two days ago, we caught a flight from Bangalore to Delhi, which was actually quite nice. Originally, we had planned to take the train, but it turned out that that train ticket would be more expensive than the airfare. Given that the train takes at least 45 hours, while the airplane takes about two, we opted for the jet. We already have limited time in northern India, so taking two days on a train was out of the question besides we have learned the hard way that it is well worth it to fly in India whenever it is possible!
Yesterday, we booked a car in Delhi, which will take us around Northern India. The plan is to visit Agra (site of the Taj Mahal), Bharatpur, Jaipur and Pushkar, as well as some hidden sites along the way. Finally, we'll return to Delhi, where we'll take one day visiting the city's most important places.
We left Delhi this morning around 8 a.m. with our driver, Mr. Dutt, on the way to Agra. A curious thing about renting a car in India is that it comes with a driver! We will travel for six days, seeing the Taj Mahal and numerous sites in Rajasthan. The sky is gray and it has been sprinkling all morning, meaning we'll likely have to put the visit to the Taj Mahal off until tomorrow morning at sunrise. We have been making very slow progress, and what was meant to be a four-hour drive has so far been four and a half, with at least 80 km. to go. However, we don't mind Mr. Dutt's cautious driving, as we've already seen one bad accident today: A car rear-ended a truck and the passengers – a family with several small children – were quite smashed up and bloodied. The strange thing was, as we passed by we could see everything quite clearly – the smashed faces of the passengers, the panicked effort to pry open crumpled doors, screaming mouths and tear-wet faces – but we heard nothing at all. Mr. Dutt said stopping to help was out of the question, so we continued along. Hopefully those people have a quick and complete recovery.
One thing about India is that we sometimes have a difficult time writing about our experiences here. Maybe it is because the differences are so vast that we don't quite know how to express them. It could also be that seeing so many new things without much time to process everything has blunted our senses somewhat. More likely, though, we think we have difficulty putting cultural difference into the right context, because we lack the information that would allow us to do that. For example, when we witness a Hindu ritual, it seems fantastic; however, without information on exactly what is being done and why, it's hard to really understand what we saw, let alone properly describe it. Fortunately, Mr. Dutt – who beyond being a competent and experienced driver, is also a very able tourist guide – seems quite willing to fill in some of these blanks for us.