panic was lost in a deep understanding

Being back in our fancy air conditioned residency in Delhi is nice. The Taj Mahal was...unfortunately underwhelming. It reminded me of seeing the White House - I expected it to be just like the movies, and it was. I guess now I have the bragging rights to say that I have a picture of myself in front of the Taj, but it hasn't been an emotional highlight of the trip by any means. Agra as a whole just kind of put me off. As soon as we arrived, we got to our hotel (the nicest hotel I've ever been inside, I think) and I started talking to a driver outside who told me he'd give me a tour of the city for Rs 20 (about 40 cents). So in a hurry, I told him "sure sure, we'll talk later" - not thinking anything of it. An hour later another driver was asking me about my trip, my group, if I needed help with anything, and the first man came up and just started SCREAMING at this other driver and then at me until I was literally pushing him off of this guy, telling him to RELAX REALX REEEEELLLAAAXXXX. The whole thing put me off because for the next 24 hours this guy was under the impression that he owned me, even after explaining to him that I had no interest in receiving any sort of services from him after his previous behavior. I guess the whole city is based around tourism to the Taj, so it makes sense that it's all directed towards scamming and making money - but that also explains why I had such negative thoughts about it.

The next day we went to Fatehpur Sikri, a 16th century town that Akbar abandoned for (mostly) unknown reasons. It was such a cool place, very well restored, we got some time to wander around on our own and Ben and I noticed that there was an upper walkway surrounding the permiter of the courtyards that we imagined the guards walking around on, so naturally we wanted to get that view. But all of the gates to the stairs were chained shut, shoot....we waited until everyone else wandered off and then scaled the 500 year old stone walls and made our way up there - what a view. We could see the mosque, the entire city, and had a pretty fun time running around up there - we saw mideval toilets! And oddly enough, Indian restroom facilities have not come very far. at all. Our hotel that night was a nightmare! My sheets had blood stains on them so I asked them for another set and they brought two - one with more blood another with a...brown stain. Oh and I left my sleep sheet back in Delhi because it was clear we weren't going to be staying in any sketchy hotels this trip. What's a little dried blood though? The whole thing seemed like a horror movie - the doors locked from the outside so if someone closed my door while I was inside I would have no way of getting out - not even a handle on the inside, it was very weird. The windows were spray painted green so you couldn't see in or out...all of my friends and my room mate ended up falling asleep in the same room to feel safe and secure and there was not a square inch of room left so I was left all alone in my creepy room. As I layed down, two spiders crawled out from my pillow. It was one of those situations where you just had to put in headphones so you couldn't hear things crawling around you and close your eyes so you couldn't see them flying above you. And I only woke up with like 5 bites so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.The next day was completely different. We went to Vrindavan, the city where Krishna spent his childhood. What an awesome change from Agra. Vrindavan was full of peaceful, smiling, welcoming people who were down to let us explore their town and their culture without any sort of interference. You have to remember that when our whole group is together we are a crowd of 30 Americans who look completely lost wherever we are, so we look pretty easy to take advantage of, so this was quite a pleasant change. We went to a temple (I wish I could remember the name, but we must have been to at least 30 by now, the names all blend) which was completely full of monkeys - a pretty eerie but awesome sight. There were probably 3 times more monkeys than people walking around this place, all of them watching us from above, and the woman leading us around told us to watch our glasses, because monkeys steal them and trade them for food at the markets. About half of the group believed her (myself included), and put our glasses and cameras away, but sure enough, about 5 minutes into the talk, I see a monkey creeping up behind one of our group members and SNATCH grabs them ever so sly-ly from her face and jumps back to the ceiling. Although I felt bad that this woman had just lost her prescription glasses, I had to hand it to those monkeys - they were damn crafty!
We ate lunch in an ashram with a bunch of monks, which was probably the most relaxed hour of our whole trip. They served us on plates masterfully crafted from leaves, drank lasi from clay cups that were immediately crushed and returned to the earth after our meal...the whole thing was just so...at ease. Which is a feeling this trip can definitely lack. In addition to being in this crazy place, we don't have Monday-Friday classes like at home, we go 7 days a week, so things can get stressful. Luckily I know how to deal with my stress fairly well (though I miss my guitar more than you can imagine), but some people here just snap - I think the only thing that really puts me off is other people not dealing with their crankiness properly and making a spectacle about the fact that THEY'RE THIRSTY, HOT, TIRED, DEHYDRATED - yea. well. we all are. Just remember where you are and what you're learning about and you'll be smiling in no time. Like this!!