Chennai to Dehli

This entry is the start of several notes about our trip to see the Taj Mahal.

It was an weekend filled with adventure moments; some good, some ugly, many unforgettable. Both for good reasons and ones that were harder to bear. But I'm getting ahead of myself dear blog. Let's just start at the start.

Friday morning we got up, ate a bit and hopped the car to the airport. Our hotel is nearby, so it was a short trip. We had worked late the night before, though so even getting up at 10 we were a bit groggy. The plane we were taking was a regular size, but they bus you from the terminal across the tarmack to your plane. When they do this, as anytime that there is a crowd in India, people push against each other in a manner that would seem very rude and aggressive in the West. People will actually push their way from the back of the plane up the aisle to get on the bus first. There isn't much polite standing and waiting anywhere. I guess with a billion people you have to step lively. Anyway, this detail is important because you begin to accept people crushing into you and touching you everywhere.

As we debarked the first bus, in the intense crush Val looped her thumb onto my belt loop so that we didn't get separated in the crowd. They will pull you along and apart if you aren't careful. So when we land in Dehli we again board a bus on the runway and drive to the terminal. As the bus arrives we are again crushed into by people. A woman bumps into Val. She turns as she feels the contact and the woman defensively clutches her purse as though she thought Val might have taken it. Meanwhile I am moving along in the dense crowd and I feel a hand in my back pocket. Must be Val holding on again I assume and move forward. But the hand moves deeper into my pocket and I know that it isn't my coworker anymore. I whip around as I step off the bus and the action pops my wallet out. The woman who had accosted Val and her male friend helpfully point to the wallet as they rush by. Yeah, I got it. You tried to pick my pocket by first separating us and then having the man dip into my shorts.

I scooped up the wallet and put it into my front pocket, chastened by the incident.

Having no checked bags, we went straight through and located our driver.

His name was Hardeep. He was a quiet, nice man but sort of a sad case. He had lost a leg in an accident and now limped along slowly with a prosthetic. He had droopy, tired eyelids and always seemed a little depressed. He used to be a guide, but now he could only drive. He had to rely on partners to give us the tours and explain things when we got there.

He took us to our hotel; a swank affair called the Taj Palace. It was perhaps a bit too swank for our purposes. Having packed light we were underdressed and could only eat in one of the four restaurants. Which is too bad, because one of them was a theme place designed to look like the inside of a Pullman car on the Orient Express.

But we were reunited with our friends and coworkers Shawn and Rose who had flown up from Bangalore earlier in the day. We had a fine repast, caught up on each other and retired early to get up for the long drive to Agra.

Next time: the road to Agra reveals itself to a sightseeing destination itself as we encounter strangers, shakedowns and funny critters.