India Trip: Day 3, travel to Agra

Early Monday morning, we headed out for our half-day drive to Agra.  We were on the road with everyone going to work and felt like we got a good peek at "real life" in the big city.  As you can see, people are taking all sorts of transportation, including the dad and his son who are walking right through the middle of this busy intersection...

Here are the cycle rickshaws getting ready for a day's work.  There were also quite a lot of people pushing handcarts with goods like textiles or produce into the city to sell in the markets.  

FOUR people on a motorcycle, including the kid in the front.  The most we saw was FIVE!  Even our driver had to laugh at that, but said that three was normal.  The ladies ride side-saddle in their saris.  

This was my favorite vehicle of the trip.  These are huge bags used for hauling grain into the city by a tractor. We saw many of these as we drove on the highway from Delhi to Agra.  There was farm after farm along the highway.  Unlike here where it's rare to see someone actually working in the fields, there was always someone in the fields.  There were always people everywhere.  I guess that comes with living in such a densely populated country; space is a premium.

A stop at Jai Guru Dev in Mathura between Delhi and Agra.  I can't remember all the facts on this one, but it's a modern building built in the 1970's by a billionaire (in U.S. dollars) who wanted all religions to get along.  When I looked him up in Wikipedia to help jog my memory, I found out he died just a couple weeks after we visited.  

They let us in for free because they didn't want to accept money from non-vegetarians.  Also, the tour guide stressed that they don't need our money (I guess not...billionaire after all), they just wanted us to worship and appreciate the beauty.  

It was beautiful, but in a different way than all the ancient buildings we'd visited.  The entire complex was built in a blinding and burning hot white marble.  Inside it opened up into a large hall, and the complex hosts festivals throughout the year.

From the side.  Many of the monuments we visited boasted "beautiful gardens," and I kept looking forward to seeing them, and it took me a while to realize that we were already looking at them.  Compared to American botanical gardens or especially formal gardens in England, they weren't much to speak of.  I don't know if there are different standards here because of the poverty or maybe they don't realize that most Americans have lawns or maybe it IS an accomplishment to keep even a simple garden in the climate.  

Intricately carved door.  Beautiful, but not as striking as some of the other things we'd seen.  Does something have to be old to be appreciated?

A rear view of the gigantic grain-hauling tractors.  I smiled every time I saw one.  

I can't even imagine how that tractor is pulling a load so big.  They were so incredibly huge!

Lots of driving today.  Trent could barely stand to look at the road because the driving style that was scary at 30 miles an hour in the city was immensely magnified when we were going 60 mph on the open road.  Our driver told us it is said that to be a good driver in India, you need 3 things: a good horn, good brakes, and good luck.  Miraculously, the only accident we saw was a mild fender bender.  Let me tell you, if we had attempted to drive, we would've caused an accident every time we turned on the car.