Experience the Postcard

We finally made it to the Taj Mahal!

When planning the trip, I had considered skipping the famous monument, but my friend Morgan convinced me otherwise. "It's so pretty at sunrise", she said. She was right.

Whenever I experience something given a lot of hype, I expect disappointment. I expected to like the Taj a bit, but I didn't expect to be so enchanted by its beauty.

That morning, the sunrise lit the Taj Mahal from the right hand side so that all of its features were accented with a golden glow. As the sun rose the glow disappeared leaving the dramatic white structure, with it's dome and towers, floating against a pale blue sky. Wow.

After our morning visit to the Taj, we went to a bank, saw bright-red Agra Fort, said goodbye to our driver and waited for our train.

Our train left 40 minutes after the scheduled departure time, and when it finally pulled into the station we had to rush around searching for the first class car, which ended up not being labeled.

The train ride was an experience. First class sounds luxurious, but it is really only the highest class that doesn't have air conditioning. It was the highest class on this particular train however.

Over the course of the train ride, we had visitors come and go from our compartment. The first guy who was only in for an hour wasparanoid about something. He made sure the compartment door was locked and closed the windows every time we stopped at a station. This had the unpleasant effect of making our compartment dark and as hot as an oven. After some time our paranoid friend left and was replaced by a grandfather or father and his beautiful (grand)daughter wearing a nice sari. The cabin was quite relaxed with these two passengers, and towards the end, the old man started singing out of boredom.

He had a nice voice. For the next 5 hours, we were invaded by the train attendants and then
(probably why the first guy kept the door locked. The benefit of ouropen door policy was that the air flowed freely from our window through the door and out the windows on the other side of the train. The pitfall was that the seats were crowded and we weren't getting the comfort that we paid for.

When we were finally left alone, the new train attendant (the old one had gotten off) told us to lock the door. We spent the remainder o fthe trip stretched out and comfortable. After 12 hours on the train and at 2 AM the next day, we arrived atVaranasi. We had arranged for pickup in advance and soon arrived atour hotel, where we barely had enough energy to undress for bed.