Taj Mahal

Alright alright, so Delhi didn't make us happy. Actually Delhi made us annoyed as hell and we couldn't wait to get out of there. M and I have been playing this game for quite some time now and were thrown off our gaurd and spun around until we realized we had entered a new world. Welcome to India. So, we hid out in our room and caught up a bit on our different lives for the last 7ish months. We got picked up bright and early by our driver to head to Agra to see the Taj. After a 6 hour ride we were told would take 3 and many obnoxious comments by our obnoxious driver, we arrived at one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. Welcome to the Taj Mahal. It was a good 100 + degrees and we were ready to tackle the monument of love. The tough was a tough place to visit. Thpush beautiful as anything, 4 white women, one of which is tall and blonde, parading around the the Taj was a hard feat to conquer. We attracted wayyyyy more unwanted attention that we could have imagined leaving us feeling a bit violated. We figured if you can't beat them, join them and started snapping photos of people snapping photos of us. Needless to say, we have quite a nice photo album from Agra. Seriously though, it was hard to find peace at the Taj because of all the men (Read: Single, creepy, slyly taking photos, will likely wind up on mantles or photoshopped on naked bods) so we did a lap, took it all in and bolted out of there. It is hard to comprehend that the Taj is nothing more than a monument for a man's wife after she died during childbirth. Seems a bit over the top, but I am thankful for the amazing monument we are left to gaze longingly at. Now that is true love. M even said she'd build me one too <3

The moment we left to head back to the car, we were attacked by touts offering everything and anything, inclduing camel rides to the gate. We thought it was a bit over the top but we did notice lots of crowds inching along on a rickshaw-cum- camel ride. Crystal finally got suckered (or maybe just annoyed enough) to give in and trade her carabeener for a a dinky Taj snow globe key chain. Awesome. Made one kid go away, thats for sure. But we do know enough not to give into kids banterings and pleas as the money únfortunately winds up in the wrong places and only encourages more begging. We have all seen Slumdog Millionaire havent we? All the tout commotion made us lose our way and we had to backtrack to figure out where we wound up. Back to the car, back to the oboxious driver, 6 more hours to Jaipur.