The events here take place in Agra on Saturdays June 26th. We have seen the Taj Mahal and were astounded by it, but we are also completely exhausted from the cruel heat.
After cooling down a bit in the car, Arri came back to the themes that he had woven into his discussion of the Taj: the work of local craftsmen. There were two things he wanted to show us: inlay stonework and rugs.
The first stop was the Agra Marble Emporium. It was an unassuming warehouse-like structure away from the center of town. They sit us down and show us how the work is done. Or at least how they want us to believe it is done. All by hand. The men use the bows to spin the wheels and grind the stones. The shaped stones are laid into marble that is ground by hand by another guy who uses the tips of his fingers to get the exact shape.
The owner guy took us down stairs into the showroom and had his underlings bring us cold drinks. At this point some of us were still recovering from the heat and really didnt need a sales pitch. But after a bit of refreshment we got into the show a bit. The work was very similar to the decorations of the Taj- same style, same materials. A little fru-fru for my tastes.
The salespitch was canny - they took us into a room with the larger pieces and it wasn't until later there was a side room where we could but smaller, cheaper stuff.
I had been looking at chess sets and I was tempted by the chess tables I saw here. The tables came in two styles: regular legs and a closed base with a light inside. It turned the marble into a nice light table with the gemstones glowing from within. After looking at a few, I settled on a more-masculine one and ordered it for delivery. Another to-do for the trip marked off.
I have to say, the salesman guy had a great patter, but he was a bit creepy. He went out of his way to make a rude comment about the president of the company we are here doing business with after he had closed the sale for no particular reason.
Afterwards Arri wanted to show us rugs. Rose had already bought a rug and the rest of us weren't interested. Shawn wanted a Taj replica so we had the driver take us to knick nack shop. I wasn't very interested in what I saw, so I wandered outside. And who do I see scoping out the roof of the local snack shack? None other than Hungry Monkey.
I took a few snaps to the delight of the shop stand's patrons. They threw him some stale bread which he haughtily accepted and ate, avoiding my gaze with dignified indifference.
At that point it was getting late and we had a four hour trip home to Dehli.
Or so we thought.
The trip took five and a half hours as we were stuck in brital traffic.
Every vehicle was slammed. See the folks on the roof of the bus there? It was a mad road home.
And everywhere you looked you saw people in mudhuts, people in lean-tos, people with goats and not much else, people looking like the didnt get to sit in air-conditioned combis very often. It was hard to reconcile the poverty with the opulence of the Taj and other burial sites we had seen. And the usual chaos seemed unusually dangerous. We turned a corner onto an on-ramp into a traffic jam. It was caused because someone had exited the car in the midddle of the road to go to the bathroom against a wall. The usual calm was wearing thin and even placid Harpeet resorted to mild swearing.
And I could see why. We stepped out at a dhaba at one point and it must have still been 95 degrees at nine thirty. It was a tough drive and we began to wonder if we should have stayed the night in Agra. But the reason to go back was so that we could get up early and see some Dehli before flying home.
It turned out to be a great decision, especially for fans of random cobras.
Next: a Sunday drive reveals crazy new sights
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