Well
today we felt a heap better than yesterday! A foggy day to start so we headed
off to a local market/Bazaar. Again, and as always, we get some great unique
gifts for ourselves and others. We stop on the way and get a proper coffee at a
proper coffee shop . . . yum. it seems a popular spot for non Indians. While we
are there several other 'whitey's come in. When the greyhound bus of Koreans descend, we decide its time to move on.
We head
to a Vodafone store to see what’s up with Jase’s mobile as he cannot receive
international SMS’s even tho it’s an Indian SIMM card etc . . . we get in the
store each desk is busy and there are a range of people hanging around . .
standing and sitting . . . not obviously queuing, but we are not sure what the
process is. We head to the rapid service
desk but after some head bobbling and smiling we are directed to the desks
where nothing seems to be happening at any rate of knots. The most movement in the place is the woman
sweeping. Each time we shift our weight
from one leg to the other, she zooms over and mops furiously under our
feet. We eventually give up, none the
wiser. That’s India for you!
With
a full shopping load, we head back to the hotel and unload. As we do we can see
the sun peeking out and doing its best to burn off the fog. So at 3.30 we head
off on foot to the Taj Mahal so Wendy can say she has seen it as well as being
able to say she has been there. He he.
We
are delayed in our dash as the guards single Jase out for security checks and
remove his 6 inch high tripod. Our options are take it to the lockers ( about
1.5 k away) or leave it with them. All guards are armed with Semi Automatic
rifles so Jase was quite polite . . but did point out that the tripod was not
on the list of items that were banned . . . even a promise by Jase not to use
it was not good enough. So we left it with them with a faint hope of seeing it again as we leave.
We move
on and move throughout the complex . . it is awesome. We got some great pics
and just relaxed and enjoyed the awe of the structure . . . In doing so we
observed so many people breaking the written rules such as using their mobile
phones, eating and not covering their shoes . . .we remind ourselves that we
are after all in India!!! He he.
After an
hour or so the fog started to roll back in and the temperature began to rapidly
drop.
We hed
out via the guard station and after some discussion and about 10 minutes
waiting, we are presented with the famed tripod and head home happy. We are staying only 2 k from the Taj so we walk
back to the hotel amid the hagglers and market stall holders. Every step of the
way we are hassled and told to “look in my store” and “come in here and see”etc
. . . the pattern was predictable and when we leave we are often asked “what
you want?” and Jase began a series of responses along the lines of “a job” or “a nice house”, "to be left
alone" and so on. These random
(funny to us) responses seemed to throw them as they did not know how to
respond . . assuming they understood them! He he.
Over the
last few weeks we’ve come up with some code words that only we understand
that our foreign company do not . . . Well we hope not anyway or we are going
to be in a lot of trouble with the political correctness police.
We
finally land at the hotel, have a nice Indian Banquet for tea and crash for the
night . . another long and busy day . . but as always a great one. Some of the many pics below . . .
