India - Day Five (April 25, 2011)
I wake at 4:30 AM to prep for the day. Our tour leaves early to hit the Taj Mahal at sunrise.
One of the other things I don't like about our guide is his style of filling us in on the history. We have these long bus rides where he could be talking to us but he's not.
5th odd thing (as we're passing by something on the road) our guide will get on the mic and say, "friends, to your left, on the hill a temple."
Yes, he called us "friends" --it made me cringe and I don't know why. I'm sure he thought it was a nice way to collectively speak to the group but I wished he would just drop it. Anyway, the odd thing is that would be it.....an announcement that would peak as if he was going to tell us this wonderful story about the X thing we just passed yet....nothing.
And, he would frequently get on the speaker and announce we were passing something...but we had passed it by then. No "we're approaching X...." to give us time to take a look.
So, we're on these long bus rides....to me this is when I would prefer he talk to us about the site we are about to visit. THEN, once we're there if he's going to give us a walking tour he can point out significant little details and fill us in on the back story. Instead, he speaks nothing on the bus and waits until we are just inside (wherever).
He positions us as a group where we stand and he gives a long, rambly speech. One --it's two damn hot to just stand still. At least if we could be walking you wouldn't notice it as much. As it is, I have trouble focusing and listening to him because I'm mostly thinking "wow, I am really overheating."
Second, we just arrived at some cool place. It's hard to pay attention to what he's saying because I really just want to be let loose and go explore and snap some pictures.
But, maybe that's just me.
There's way too many people unfortunately when we first enter through the main doors of the Taj Mahal to get a decent shot. Jeff actually takes a pretty good one but I'm not that patient. Besides, I prefer to experience a really spectacular view then be overly focused about getting a photo of it. Eventually I have to abandon Jeff so I can sneak a way to a bench in the shade so I can just stare at Taj in awe. It's beautiful and so perfectly balance. I really enjoyed that moment there by myself.
Jeff joins me later and we go up and walk around. We have about two hours at Taj Mahal which is just about perfect to see everything. I am disappointed when I ask our Guide for our entrance ticket and he says he can't do that. Again, no explanation, just no and a half-hearted "I'll check with HQ about it" --why bother, it's quite clear you are not going to ask so let's not pretend.
There is an additional fee, optional tour in the afternoon to go see some extra sites. One of them is Agra Fort which Jeff and I planned on going on our own. The thing is, that normally your entrance fee to Taj also includes the fort. So, we've already paid for it but without the ticket we will have to pay again.
Later we decide to just pay for the optional tour. I'm feeling annoyed (per usual) about everything. It's way too expensive for what it is but we don't know any better so we just go along with it. Today I begin to feel the fatigue of the begging.
Not so much the people hacking their wares on the street just the constant rupee request for everything. Rupee to walk through a door, rupee to get into the bathroom, rupee for the girl holding the paper towel, rupee for the guy to watch my shoes while I go into temple, rupee to get my shoes back, rupee because I took a picture of a woman on the street, rupee because I took a picture of someone's goat, rupee, rupee, rupee.
The actual expense isn't that big of a deal the problem is as a traveler you never have small bills. You're going to ATM or bank exchange where they give you huge bills when what you really need are ones. I ended up having constant stress wherever we went because I never knew when I would be asked to present a rupee tip and I never had it. So the choice was #1 don't enter (e.g. sorry, you don't get to pee today), #2 pay them way too much (e.g. instead of tipping one dollar, tip a 5 or a 10), #3 don't pay and run like hell and hope they don't come after you.
Ahem, I did all three in various order through-out the trip. All suck. Option #4 just tip the damn rupee as expected and needed almost never happened. If I can give one piece of advice for visiting India is to make sure before you go out that you check your hotel's exchange and ask for at least 10, ten rupee bills, or better yet, 20 ten rupee bills. It would have alleviated a lot of stress.
To be continued.
