Ancient Wonders & Tourists

Ew, life here in India seems to be moving at lightening speed although the weeks seem to passby slowly. At any rate, I'm sitting in an internet cafe here in Amritsar passing the time away so I thought I might update my blog while I'm at it. I'll try to be concise but I have so much to share it might be a bit tough. At any rate, here's what's new in my life:

I left Varanasi and headed by train to Agra. Agra is a city built around a monument: the Taj Mahal. The Taj, as you probably know, is one of the wonders of the ancient world. The locals like to say it's the ultimate monument to love as the massive structure was built by the king as a mossoleum to his wife who died in childbirth. My time in Agra was short but filled with lots of good stories. I saw the Taj from various angles and multiple times in the day. The first is when I snuck down the beach by a park to get a nice picture of the Taj at sunset. It was a funny place to take a photo as a herd of donkeys were grassing behind me long the shore and trash from former sight-seers filled the ground.

At a popular restaraunt in Agra, I met some German tourists who were planning on seeing the Taj the next morning. After a long talk, they invited me to join them on their travels. So, the next day I toured Agra with some nice German girls seeing the Taj, the Agra Fort (where the King was imprisoned for a number of years), and we even went to one of the upscale pools to swim. But those are stories for another time. Back to what you really want to read about, the Taj is every bit as good as people and pictures tell you it is. Although I would argue from a far it's not incredibly awe-ing, once you're upclose it's incredible. The intricate designs and marble work is truly amazing. It's funny because within the Taj area everyone is constantly turning around as they walk just to look again at the Taj. It's like you can't take your eyes off of it and you marvel at how the light hits the building in different ways as you walk around. I think Bill Clinton was right when he said, "There are two types of people in this world: Those who have seen the Taj and those who haven't."

The next day I met some nice French girls on my way to the ancient city of Fatephur Sikri. The three of us walked around the abandoned capital of a once great empire. The city is actually a world heritage site and it was cool to walk around an ancient palace trying to imagine what life would have been like hundreds of years ago there.

After that, I hopped on a train and headed to Amritsar. Amritsar is a small city located near the India-Pakistan border in the northwest part of India. The city is like Mecca to Sikhs who come on pilgrimage to the Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is quite beautiful and the inner court of the complex allows a great reprieve from the congested streets of Amritsar. Although I'm here for 3 days, it seems I over-estimated how much there is to do here.

Yesterday, while eating a meal at the temple I made friends with some Israeli tourist and we all went to the Pakistan border. Here, every night at sundown, the Indian and Pakistani border troops participate in a ceremony of pure bravado. Filled with loud chanting, shouts, fancy high kicks, and more the two sides display their skill. The scene has become so popular that there are bleachers set up for visitors and they were completely packed with people cheering for India. Think of it like a pep rally for India. It was crazy, I'll have to show you video for it to really make sense but it was quite fun.

So that's the main updates from my life. As you can see, I've begun to participate in the joys of traveler culture. In India, you're pretty easy to pick out as a tourist so among ourselves there's always the courtesy of saying hello. But often with us younger travelers we enjoy spending the day traveling to the sites together just to have other people or different people to talk to. So that's been fun especially since I'm on my own until I get to Delhi. Why are all the tourists I meet up with girls? I don't know. That's a good question. Hmmm.... hahah

Anyways, although I've done most of what there is to do in Amritsar (Golden Temple, Border Ceremony) I think I there are some temples I can visit and of course there's always just relaxing. Which is probably how I'll spend the rest of today. Sunday morning I leave for Delhi to catch up with Dr. Thanzauva and family which I'm looking forward to. It'll be nice to spend a week with some familiar faces after a week on the road. Also, today marks exactly 2 wks before I arrive back in the Lone Star State. Get excited America, I'm still coming back. Well, that's all I have for you now. Update to come mid-next week from Delhi.

pax et bonum