Last I left off, I was just about to leave Dharamshala. As I write this, I am not only back in the US, I am sitting at Momentum Chevrolet in San Jose waiting for my car to be serviced. Talk about a change of scenery and a harsh return to reality. I will do my best to communicate the leg of my trip that followed Dharamshala: the group journey from Delhi to Agra for two days of sightseeing then the journey to Jaipur for the wedding of my friends Aurora and Vinayak.

December 24, 2019

The flight out of the the Kangra/Dharamshala airport went off without a hitch, although it was delayed a bit and so I hung around the tiny airport with a handful of other travelers longer than expected. I was sad to leave Dharamshala as my Buddhist nun friend had implanted ideas in my mind about the possibility of living there as an expat: apparently you can have a very high quality of life for about $500 USD per month. That info made me feel disillusioned by the high cost of living in San Francisco, and in California in general.

Once I arrived in the Delhi airport, I was amused by the Merry Christmas signage since it is not a popular holiday in India and indicates a catering to western tourists and commercialism. Nonetheless I snapped pictures of the signs and tweeted them out: it was Christmas eve and I was about to meet up with my peeps!

After some harsh Delhi traffic (what’s new), I made it to The Park Hotel accompanied by Kawaljeet as usual. I appreciated his chaperoning tendencies so much, and his services coupled with those of my guides and drivers relieved any loneliness I might have felt, and ultimately made my solo parts of the trip the most enjoyable. After a quick freshening up, I headed downstairs to meet Vinayak, the energetic groom who had helped so many of us make the India dream come true! He was accompanied by a cousin of Aurora’s, Paul. After greetings we set out to meet the ladies of the group who were doing some hardcore shopping at Fab India: Aurora—the bride herself—her mother Scotia, an old friend of her mother’s, Kati, and Aurora’s best friend, Emily. Paul’s mother Heidi stayed in that night so I didn’t meet her until the next day. The ladies seemed wilted by the warm store and the overwhelming nature of shopping for cloths in an unfamiliar style. This was a sort of foreshadowing, as shopping for appropriate wedding clothes tended to dominate many of our days and emotions until the actual wedding was over.

The hotel and the shops are all in or around Connaught Place, a shopping and business complex built by the English and renovated in the last 20 years. There were tons of people out, for some reason maybe because of it being Christmas Eve, and all of a sudden I was not only out and about at night (which I hadn’t done at all per Kawaljeet’s instructions on safety), I was with a group of westerners. This was another foreshadowing: the change in being a solo traveler discovering myself and a new country to being one of a group required more emotional labor. This new situation called negotiating other people’s hopes, dreams, and fears, and these people were still very jet-lagged. Meanwhile I had nearly completed adjusted. And I had experienced much less culture shock than they appeared to be experiencing. I felt exhilarated trying to cross a street amongst tuk-tuks, bicycles, cars, taxies, and vans, while some in the group fought wildly against the uncivilized rules of the road in downtown New Delhi.

After stopping at another chain store to briefly survey clothing options, we went to a restaurant called Farzi Café which provided much novelty but I can’t really recommend it. It was deafeningly loud, turned into a discotech at some point, and a few of us waited for our food for a very long time. Thankfully the food was delicious which minimized the irritation of the long wait. We beat a hasty retreat to protect our hearing, jumped into a couple tuk-tuks to expedite the jaunt back to the hotel. We split up and turned in for the night, knowing we had an early morning: the bus to Agra was scheduled to leave at 8:30 am.

December 25: Christmas Day

Oh what a day! To make a long story short, after breakfast at the hotel and getting everyone into the van, we hit the road for Agra with Aurora, Vinayak, and myself occupying the back row of the bus, the party row. It was great to catch up with them (find out what they were doing professionally, etc., as I hadn’t seen them in over 3 years!) and fill them in on my trip so far. I also started to get to know Emily and Paul. At this point I met our amazing tour guide Pramod, who had already been with their group for a couple days, and who would continue to accompany us to Agra and then Jaipur, his hometown.

The drive was straightforward and we stopped at a roadside stop that wasn’t much different from those along US highways.

We arrived at the Radisson Blu hotel in Agra around 1:45 pm. This hotel was probably my favorite of all the traditional hotels I stayed in. We had a quick lunch in the hotel restaurant and since the fog had cleared, we set out… for… the Taj Mahal! I was so excited.

I highly recommend doing the Taj Mahal with a tour guide. I can’t image negotiating the parking lot, electric trams, line for tickets, walk to security, multiple security checks and all the jostling and shoving from the other tourists that this entails without the guidance of a professional. Once we got through all that, there were still multiple labyrinth-like-corridors and courtyards away from the grand jewel. Finally we rounded the bend in the outer gardens that leads to the main gate entrance. The area knotted up with tourists waving their cameras around. The build up was almost excruciating, then as I passed through the double arches, the looming, white, sunlit Taj Mahal appeared from out of the darkness. The excitement of the crowd only added to my beholding the majesty of this global architectural icon.

After entering into the main gardens, I mentioned wanting a group picture, and Pramod offered the option of getting a professional photographer, which turned out to be awesome! He got someone he was evidently familiar with, and the photographer took a group shot and then did brief individual photoshoots with several of us. After my photoshoot, he did one with Vinayak and Aurora, who were wearing Christmas-themed outfits. In the golden afternoon sunlight with the beautiful Taj Mahal raising up in the background, I couldn’t help exclaiming over and over, “It’s officially Christmas!” Aurora and Vinayak looked awesomely kitsch, and this was a Christmas I would never forget.

After the photoshoot, Pramod took us around and gave us the history of the place; in short, it is a paradise mausoleum for Shah Jahan’s beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal who died after Shah Jahan was king for only four years. She gave him 14 children. Then we made our way up to the monument itself, where we put on booties over our shoes and queued up to enter the inner area with the sarcophagus is located. Walking on the marble, closely inspecting the floral patterns of inlaid marble work, and marveling at the Arabic text inlaid on the front of the monument was breath-taking. Talk about class: no decoration was overdone, yet it was endlessly impressive. It took laborers 20 years to complete this monument, and part of that chain involved bringing the marble from other parts of India to Agra. Indeed there was supposed to be an identical structure in black marble opposite the Taj Mahal, that was to be the final resting place of Shah Jahan, but Shah Jahan’s son Aurangzeb usurped the power and put Shah Jahan under house arrest at the Agra Fort, within viewing distance of the Taj Mahal, and Shah Jahan was never to return. We were wondering about this for a while, but then Pramod clarified: the laborers were paid, and as such, the king was draining the empire of its financial resources. The son usurped the power and protected the riches of the empire by putting the kibosh on the matching monument.

Although extremely impressive, it was also extremely exhausting to visit the Taj Mahal due to the crowds, queues, pushing, and attention we received as whities, especially after a long day of driving from Delhi.

Pramod took us to an artisan shop afterwards that demonstrates how the stones and gems are fit to be inlaid in the same traditional style as the marble of the Taj Mahal. There we saw some masterpieces of the art form, and I ended up buying a couple of souvenirs which are simple stunning in their artistry.

Once back at the hotel, we all met up as a group for the buffet dinner and did a little toast to Christmas. I can’t imagine ever doing a normal Christmas after this. Best Christmas ever!

December 26

Today we bid adeiu, if only temporarily, to Vinayak and Aurora as they set out to collect a couple friends from the train station after we did some intense shopping for pashmina scarves. Our group, minus them, continued with sightseeing at Agra Fort. I was extremely impressed by this monument as it had palaces upon palaces built on as additions, each of which reflected the architectural styles and materials used by the moghuls of the era. At Agra Fort the traces of three generations of Muslim Emperors is evident in first red standstone, then white marble adorned with gold, and finally the beautiful palace cum prison called Khas Mahal that kept Shah Jahan under house arrest. This palace displays the same style of floral inlaid marble as the Taj Mahal. Describing it this way is only the tip of the iceberg—you have to visit to take in all the beautiful gardens, arches, and small rooms, and then imagine carpets lining the marble floors and carpets hanging from each arch, with the moghuls living their native way.

When we left Agra fort a huge pack of monkeys made a b-line from a lawn off in the distance straight toward us at the entrance, and one pissed all over the baulistrade as it headed toward us.

I should mention here that the aggressive selling of cheap souvenirs and begging outside the monuments of Agra was kind of intense for some people. It was similar to what I experienced in some parts of Italy and perhaps also Egypt, so I just ignored it, but in general the desperation and poverty of Agra was more apparent than it had been for me previously on the trip. Furthermore, the dry and dusty environment of Agra added to the feelings of desolation kicked up by the place. I have to admit it was soothing to stay in such a nice hotel here. Since Agra is such a major tourist destination in India, the government actually shut down 3G internet while we were there. This was done, apparently, in response to the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act because Muslims come to Agra for Friday prayers and authorities did not want to endanger tourists in a potential action. It was interesting but also inconveniencing to not have access to the internet on our phones, for text messages to not go through or not be delayed, and to have trouble getting cash out of ATMs due to their internet connection being unstable.

Anyway, after touring Agra Fort, we had worked up quite the appetite and cheers began issuing from the van: Piz-za HUT, Piz-za HUT, Piz-za HUT… Vinayak had recommended it, so our driver took us there, where Vinayak and Aurora met us. We chowed down on pizza done India style and I finally tried Indian beer: Kingfisher Ultra and Bira, the former being a smooth lager and the latter being a floral ale that was a little too full bodied for me. We also got a pitcher of “masala Pepsi” to try which was… pretty weird and disgusting. Why is there an Indian version of everything that is “masala ____” yet whatever defines “masala” is not consistent?? For example, the spices and flavor profile of masala chai, masala pepsi, masala liver, and masala oats have nothing in common! Putting “masala” in front of any noun just signals that it is an India version of something…

After lunch, we went to the famous Kohinoor Jewelers showroom in Agra to see Padmashri Shams’s 3-D embroidery artworks, where photography was not allowed to my relief—I was getting photographer’s fatigue, feeling pressured to take a picture of everything I saw. Although we didn’t buy anything, they gave us complimentary chai and let Aurora try on the most beautiful Indian emerald and diamond necklace.

Back at the hotel and before the evening show, I sat out on a brief afternoon interlude of crossing a busy street to go to the “K-Mart of India,” which was a harrowing adventure and of course anyplace that is the K-Mart of India is bound to be depressing. Around 6:15 I went to an evening showing of a play about the building of the Taj Mahal called Kalakriti. The play had a lot of musical interludes and reminded me of Bollywood movies—lots of looks, but not that much substance. While performed in Hindi, there were headphones viewers could wear that offered several languages to translate the dialog. I am not sure it was totally worth 4,000 rupees but it was a chill way to spend the evening. I opted out of the group dinner, choosing instead to get room service and focus on packing up and taking it easy before our upcoming travel day.

December 27

A long day of driving to Jaipur, with a stop outside of Agra to visit Fatehpur Sikri Palace, an immense city-compound built by Akbar the Great (one of several, he moved around a lot) for his Christian, Muslim, and Hindu wives, close to the Sufi Salim Chesti who was supposedly blessing the wives to conceive a male bebé. Whoopty, one did conceive: the Hindu wife gave Akbar the Great a son, so she got the biggest palace.

It was very cold this day, continuing the record breaking chills that came over this region during our touring. I felt the doldrums of being surrounded by stone in the complex and a grey sky above. In retrospect I think I was experiencing the premonition of the migraine that would begin striking me the next day. Finally toward the end of the tour we peeped a grassy garden and the sun began shining and I felt it immediately perk me up.

We had an Indian buffet lunch al fresco then hit the road for many hours, only getting into Hotel Diggi Palace that evening after sunset. We gathered for dinner in the dining room of the hotel and started meeting the many guests… the convergence begins! After all the the travel, sightseeing, and shopping with the group, and looking ahead to all the new people to meet and wedding events to partake in, I saw I was poised between one exhausting long-haul and another.