That's what the bus driver said to me as we stopped for food on the way from Delhi to Agra.
I said yeah. Alright.
-He replied ok.. you have drink?
I said yes.. I have a Coca Cola inside.
-No no no... beer drink.
What? No. I'm ok.
-Ok you meet me at my bus at 8:30 for beer.
...that's not the kind of friendship I wanted. I didn't even know his favorite color, but he was already onto beer and bus meetings.
Anyway, the Taj Mahal was pretty great. But as soon as I stepped off the bus in Delhi, the heat was oppressive. I felt like NO NO!! STOP! TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF! But it was just the weather, and I managed. Sweatily.
The good thing about the heat here is that it is dry, so you don't feel like a hot waterfall like you do in Bombay.
From there we went straight to the Agra. Home of the Taj Diggity Mahal. What a beautiful place. Actually, I was thinking of the proper way to explain it to y'all, and the words weren't coming to mind.
I thought to describe it like this. On a scale of pretty to beautiful, the Taj Mahal is beyond. It's the 11 on the volume scale. From now on when something is more beautiful than beautiful, I will say it's Taj.
From far away it is pure white, but as you go closer, it is inscribed with the entire Quran, and flowers made with semi-precious stones. I took pictures, so when I go home, you'll know. There is a myth that all of the workers who made the Taj Mahal had their hands cut off after so they wouldn't be able to replicate its beauty. I'm hoping it's just a myth. But that is how beautiful it is. It looks like the world's crown.
A white girl is an Indian tourist attraction in and of itself.
You have to cover your shoes in hairnets to step on the Taj.
So anyway, from there we stayed at a lovely hotel where the internet cost 6 bucks an hour and dinner was free so... I don't know. The bed was cozy and I slept like a very tired person in a cozy bed.
The next day we saw a fort. A FORT! Better than all of the ones I made on snow days out of pillows and a refridgerator box, this one had places for torches, thrones, pillars, more inscribed jewel flowers... the whole nine yards.
And when we went back to Delhi, we met Tula's parents and went to temple.
At temple, old women were singing to someone I did not know, and it sounded full of energy and heart and it was oddly beautiful. Some man put an orange Bindi on my forehead with his thumb.
Everyone was there: Hanuman, Shiva, Ganesh.. the whole Hindu gang.
I'm beginning to kind of get an understanding of the idea of religion. Catholics pray to their God and saints. Hindus pray to theirs. None of them are false, all of them are real to these people who pray. So I'm thinking that either Jesus, Allah, and Vishnu are all upstairs playing poker... or we're all praying to the same energy.
I'm still thinking about that. I'm going to go meet some Buddhists in Dharam Shala on Tuesday, so I'll let you know more after that.