Agra

Ah…back in India!

I spent two months in India in 1992 and four months in India in 1996. When I mentioned this to an Indian colleague at work, some time ago, she congratulated me, “Wow, when you were there, there were hardly any people in India!” Although the population of India has gone from about 700 million back in the ’90’s to around 1.3 billion now, I’d left India, on both occasions, with an overwhelming sense of how very many people there were.

I worried that India would have changed, that Declan would not like India, that I might not like India, but…India is still lovely!

We arrived at the Divine Pleasure Hotel in Delhi around midnight. I chose it because it was near our early morning train to Agra. The name made it sound like a brothel; the interior seemed more like one of the more institutional hotels I had stayed at in China, with the bathroom smelling like smoke and the sheets looking dodgy. “I’m glad you could lock the door behind us!” confided Declan.

There is a new express train to Delhi, just two hours. I had bought the tickets online ahead of time, and we didn’t get mixed up at all, finding the platform! This whole trip, I have been doing a lot more planning ahead of time and doing things online; I am working with more of a timeframe than I did when I was traveling with Julie, years ago, and I want to make things easy for Declan, but I know that I am missing out on some of the spontaneity of travel.

We arrived at the ZigZag Hostel (below). I had originally made a reservation at another hostel, but I had to cancel the reservation when I read the fine print and figured out that they did not accept travelers under the age of 18. At the train station, we stood in line for a ticket for a government taxi, making sure that we paid the correct price of 250 rupees for our trip. I was pleased to see that they were still filling out forms with carbon paper at the taxi office. I began to think that I had made a huge mistake as we got closer to our hotel. We passed small farms, women making cow patties; the paved road turned to dirt. “There is your hotel!” smiled the taxi driver. As we approached the big metal door, he told me, “Stay here for one night; you can always leave tomorrow.”

But of course we love the place! It is run by two Indian brothers, John and Moses, and two of their childhood friends. All four of them used to work in fancy hotels, doing tours and front desk management and catering, but they felt that this was not the kind of life that they wanted to be living, so they bought this property and started up this hostel just three months ago. All the guests hang out on the rooftop together, drink the free chai and exchange stories; Moses and John help you figure out what to do with your time. Yesterday the activity was “Taj Mahal sunset” for Rs 100. (71 rupees to the dollar). The Taj Mahal is about a 25 minute walk from here, but we picked up some bikes along the way and biked through a dirt path to a little minaret behind the Taj Mahal to see the sunset (below).

The Taj Mahal is incredible and majestic and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but Agra has not Disneyfied the area around the Taj. Cows and goats wandering around, impossible things being carted around on bikes and on rickshaws, cheerful kids shouting and demanding to know your good name and from which country?! We left the bikes in front of an old stone building and walked up to the minaret, stopping to see some baby goats along the way. We had the most incredible sunset, along with just a few other tourists. Four of us came with John, and there were maybe 20 people on that platform watching the sunset; it felt very intimate, considering that more than eleven thousand people visit the Taj Mahal every day!

Coming home, we stopped for tea and a chat and then passed by the carnival. Roller coasters, Ferris Wheels, lots of vendors and food trucks. John told us which snacks to try; unbelievably flavorful chaat (crunchy, tangy, sweet/spicy snack), and some other treats whose names I have forgotten. Everything cost around Rs30. If you had dressed up that food on a fancy plate at an Indian restaurant in Chicago, it could command top dollar! Such a delight to be able to sample so recklessly!

Today we left at 5:15 to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. Declan was predictably grumpy, but I convinced him to get up with the promise of lots of screen time in the afternoon. The Taj was incredible, of course; so beautiful in the early morning light. The white marble subtlely changes colors throughout the day; I couldn’t stop taking photos. A random Indian man, hanging around the mosque at the side of the Taj, offered to take my photo. He told me to stare at the Taj, and then he took a closeup shot of the Taj Mahal reflected in my eye. Pretty cool for a cheesy tourist shot.

The hostel is super-great, filled with characters. There is Matthew, the Swedish man who spent 8 months riding his motorcycle to India from Sweden. He has been here several days now. He has not managed to wake up to see the sunrise, or even the Taj Mahal, but he managed to buy a new bottle of whiskey every night.

Dreadlocked Ryan, recently arrived from a six-month motorcycle stint in Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. I asked him about the all the Rohinga refugees and he seemed a little puzzled; he hadn’t heard them. He picked up the guitar and sang “Shiva Nataraj”, chanting softly, over and over. He was reading a book called “Complex Sanskrit” and doing that sideways “acha-cha” head bob thing. He was headed to Rishikesh to be with the guru Mooji. Lovely Hailey from Barbados. I had never met a white person from Barbados, so I asked her. There are only 300,000 people in Barbados, and only 2% of the population non-black.

Trading stories of bad jobs they had had to finance their travels. Hailey was a writer, and tried to pick up little writing projects along the way. Lila was in Italian illustrator, she sat with her MacBook opened on her lap in the upstairs café, working on some jobs. Ryan had done some “Banana humping” in Australia; he was person who had to lift the 60 kg bunches of bananas from the trees when they had been cut down.

I texted Julie to tell her about all of the characters that were staying at the hostel. She said, “for sure they’re talking about you, 50-year-old woman from US traveling with 10-year-old son!”

John, one of the young Indian owners, called me a “flashpacker”. I had to look up the term, but it seems like it is a backpack it with a bit more disposable income, willing to spend a bit more on experiences but still budget conscious. Maybe that’s me!

John and his brother Moses, the two young Indian men who had left their good jobs working at upscale hotels to go into business with two of their best friends from childhood. They both have masters degrees, and they said that the colleges they attended, St, Stephen and St. John, with some of the best in India. But they were not interested in making a lot of money. They told me, “India is all about people, not about monuments.”

It was such a great experience, being in the hospital and being with them; we had the chance to do some things that I never would have done otherwise.

One night, Simon from the hostel cooked us an amazing Indian barbecue. We stayed up late and drink some whiskey and an Agra version of a mojito. The next day John took us on a bicycle tour of the countryside, starting with a brief boat ride to have a view of the Taj Mahal from a different perspective. Technically, boats are not allowed out on the river, but this is an old fisherman who has been doing this for years, and John has known him most of his life. He had one of those old wooden boats that you pole, rather than row, to get from one place to another.

We cycled to a nearby village. It is very striking to me how this village can be a five or 10 minute bike ride away from the Taj Mahal, and yet it is its own world. We stopped by the house of one family that John knows to have some tea. It was a nice family of women, all sisters-in-law and their kids, all all squatting on the floor and beading sari decorations to sell. They made us some chai, and smiled and laughed. When their father-in-law walked by, they all quickly covered their faces with the edge of their sari. We cycled a bit further, passing women balancing impossible loads and middle school children shrieking happily and demanding to know our names. Declan did not like being stared at.

We walked around a farm that had potato plants (Agra produces most of the potatoes for India) mixed in with marijuana plants. John thought the marijuana was just for the personal use of the family; you can still buy hash and weed at government bhang shops. Peacocks wandered among the cow patties, and the Taj Mahal was visible in the distance.

On the way home, we cycled past an open air barber, and we convinced Declan to get a trim and a head message, while John talked with the barber shop crowd about the missiles India had just launched against Pakistan.

Brian Medernach, the husband of my friend Toni Lullo, a doctor who has spent years working in the Centro de Salud Santa Clotilde in Peru, saw my Facebook post with the Taj Mahal. He messaged me: are you still in Agra? I will be there just briefly, day trip from a conference in Delhi!

So I managed to meet up with Brian in a fancy hotel, worlds colliding. Budget hostel Agra, fancy hotel Agra, Santa Clotilde updates, medical conference updates. Such a treat to meet up with Brian! He tells me that things are going well in Santa Clotilde, and that they have a new administrator in place and new doctors on the way.

On to Varanasi! I am very excited to visit Varanasi with Declan; it was, to me, the most special place in India that I visited, way back in 1992; I hope he is able to appreciate some of its magic.