India Part IV

Friday May 9th 2008

This was the never-ending day. We left our hotel at about 9:30 am and took our van to Agra which is where the Taj Mahal is located. This van ride took us out in the country and through several rural and farming areas. While we were driving, there was a camel with a cart attached to it on the side of the road and our driver stopped so we could take a closer look.
Being the adventurous sort, when I was invited to climb onto the cart and sit in it I did. It was very funny trying to get up there. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for this to be my major mode of transportation. It was very nice of the locals to allow us to see it up and close…I think that our tour guide had to tip the guy for letting us take photos and sit in the cart. I have to wonder what they thought of us climbing out of this air conditioned van in our American clothing and wanting to sit on their camel cart. If a foreign person stopped me and wanted to sit in my car I would think that they were crazy and I most likely wouldn’t let them because I would be worried that they would try to steal my car. Of course if this did happen I would never accept a tip…this is a very large cultural difference. After we had been traveling for three hours we stopped at a McDonalds for lunch. I ordered a fish sandwich combo meal and I got an ice cream cone for dessert. The ice cream cone cost me $.25 it was amazing how cheap it was. The didn’t offer any beef products, just chicken, fish and vegetarian dishes. They had a veggie surprise burger and a pizza pocket dish…they both looked very disgusting to me. As we were leaving Gretchen was talking to an employee behind the counter and he offered to give her a tour of the kitchen. She was not allowed to photograph anything but it was interesting. They told her that most of the meat and produce was imported from Australia and New Zealand. They have a special water filter system that takes their regular water through a cleaning process to make it healthy for anyone to drink. She said it was very similar to what you would find in the US kitchen and everything was very clean and organized.

We got back in our van for the remaining portion of our LONG trip and I began to get sick. I normally don’t get car sick or nauseated but this trip did not sit well with my body. One of my friends gave me some of this anti-nausea medicine that worked wonders…I was very happy to have this medicine. We drove through the country and seen several farms at one point we got off of the main road and I think that the driver got lost in this little community and we had to turn around several times. Our next destination was Fatehpur Sikri this is an old fort from the 1500’s that is about 26 miles from Agra. It was nice to get a sense of the Indian history and to see how some of their ancestors lived…and just because I LOVE to see old castles. We saw the Kings and Queens chambers as well as chambers for his concubines.


This was a local couple we saw.There was also a large chess board in the middle of the open square that was used with human players. I remember that it was extremely hot this day and the sweat was pouring off of me. After we were done here we drove to Agra and visited another heritage site, The Red Fort. The Red Fort is a grouping of Mughal buildings and was built in the 1500’s. I was fairly sick and very tired by this point of the day that I don’t remember much about this site except that you could see the Taj Mahal in the distance and get photos. After we were done visiting this fort we checked into our hotel in Agra. This was the most beautiful and comfortable hotel of our entire trip. The beds were very soft and the sheets and blankets were very luxurious. We rested for 30 minutes and then we went shopping at a local marble center. This is where you can purchase some of the inlaid marble pieces that are similar to the designs of the Taj Mahal. There wasn’t much to the shopping and I didn’t purchase anything…they certainly don’t have the consumerism that was evident in China.

As a side note I had not been sleeping very well on this trip and I was very exhausted at this point. My generous roommate gave me some very nice medicine and 15 minutes after lying down that night I was out until 5:15am the next day. I was so happy to have a full night sleep for a change. It certainly energized me for the next portion of my adventure.

Saturday May 10th 2008

We all met at 5:45 for the short van ride to see the Taj Mahal as the sun was coming up. We had to go through this crazy security center. You couldn’t bring a purse, camera bag or anything in with you. I had to leave everything on the bus and just carry my camera. I guess with such an international monument it is important to have such tight security so there are no terrorist attacks. It was a very beautiful white marble building that is covered with inlaid designs made up of precious and semi-precious stones. It was build between 1631 and 1648 by the Moghal emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite wife. I have to say I am very happy the get the opportunity go see it but it was a little anti-climatic. After all it is just a wonderfully amazing building. After breakfast we all piled back into the van for our second six hour ride that included motion sickness. We were going back to Delhi to have two business meetings.

Our first meeting was with Make My Trip.com. This is the organization that arranged our tour while we were in India and they also run a rather large international travel call center. The area that these call centers were located was a very new section of the city. It wasn’t actually in Delhi but in a suburb. It had a large Americanized mall and many modern tall buildings as well as tall multi-story apartment buildings. The had ordered in Pizza Hut pizza for us for lunch and we were all ravenous by the time that we arrived. The pizza was tasty and very similar to what we have in the US. They also had the iced pulpy orange beverage for us to drink…it was similar to a pulpy OJ. I didn’t especially care for this item. We ate in the employee cafeteria and they had lots of motivational items on the walls…this is a photo of an especially funny one. We then had an hour meeting with their Chief Technical Officer. He talked to us about how business worked in India and some of the challenges facing their organization. He was a native of India but he was educated in the US and he received his MBA in California. So I found his demeanor to be very americanized, the way he held our attention and had the command of authority around him.

This is what their office work area looked like.



After this meeting we went to a second business meeting down the street at IBM outsourcing call center. We were greeted at the door by several people and they had very high security at this company so we were not allowed to bring in any cameras, phones or note pads. There was a women at the door with a basket of flowers who pressed them to our forehead as we entered the building. They also had two fragrant and colorful flower arrangements on the floor as we entered these rooms. I almost stepped into them twice. He gave us a tour of the building it looked like a typical office with cubes; there were not many people there because it was Saturday. The gentlemen gave us a brief overview of their operations and he explained how they have to comply with American business practices while they are in India. An interesting rule that they follow is the practice of hiring people with disabilities. He said that they were specifically looking for a few disabled people to meet their American “quota”.

We arrived back to the hotel late about 7 or 8pm. We were going to meet in 30 minutes to go out to dinner but I felt the need to skip that meal and to pass out in my bed for the evening. I think that I had enough Indian food and being awake.

Sunday May 11th 2008

Even thought we had been in Delhi three times we had never really got any time to see it. This morning we were taken on a City tour and visited Humayun’s Tomb which is a massive 16th century monument to the second Mogul emperor. I don’t remember much about the tomb except that it was a big brick building. When we went up to the tomb portion there who native Indian women who snowed me. They asked me if I wanted to take their photo so I did and then they wanted paid. I don’t think that I was the only one scammed but I should have known better. Gretchen and I did some silly photos there and basically acted Crazy…I don’t have any to show because she hasn’t sent me the copies yet! As we were leaving there were two people who were “mowing” the lawn of the gardens. I say the term mow loosely because the guy was acting crazy. He was not going in straight lines and the item he was using to mow with looked like it was built 200 years ago. The tour leader took us to a small outdoor market next. This is some photos. I didn’t buy much here as it didn’t appeal to me. But, just before we left Steve was talking to this local man who was trying to get us to come to his small shop across the road. I wouldn’t have gone by myself but I felt comfortable going as a group. This man has lots of small tourist type items and he was very unwilling to negotiate. I finally got him to come down on a wooden statue of a camel. I still think that I paid to much but it was still fun. Next, we went to a local area restaurant for lunch and they had some very tasty chicken kabobs. Then we were off to a second shopping area…this time it was a handmade carpet shop. They gave us a 10 minute talk on how the whole community workers on these rugs and sends them to Delhi to sell. They were beautiful but VERY expensive. The cheapest one was about $400 and the one that I liked was about $800, consequently I didn’t purchase anything.

We had the rest of the afternoon and evening off at the hotel. I spent a few hours sitting at the pool reading my book and relaxing. We had to vacate our rooms at midnight to goto the airport for our 4am flight to Dubai.

The next post will be about my adventures in Dubai and it will wrap up my story.