Little Brown Truck: Our Cramazing May, Episode LII: Arriving at the Taj Mahal

Sunday morning...one more week, and we would be back in Wisconsin! But for now, much adventure still lay in front of us. Up next, a visit to the Taj Mahal, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (Rex has explained to me that all but one of the Original Seven Wonders no longer exists, so they were renamed, and the Taj made the new list.). The arrangement we had made with Mr. Singh was that we would meet him before dawn for an early-morning drive to Agra, necessary to avoid touring during the hottest part of the day.

We got up around 4 a.m. and packed a bag for the day. I had heard that the drive to Agra was long and not super friendly for folks who tend to get carsick, so I decided that this was a good morning to try out my Dramamine-like medication that I had picked up in England. I was trying for the non-drowsy kind, but alas, no dice.

Um, let's just say that this turned out to not be a good day to try a new medicine, especially one that makes you drowsy. Note to self: next time you travel overseas, don't leave the country without Non-Drowsy Dramamine, no substitutes.

Unfortunately, the meds ended up affecting my whole outlook on the day, and in the end, although we were able to visit a beautiful, historic, important, world-renowned building, this day was by very far my least favorite of the whole trip. I felt cloudy and out of it the whole day, and besides that, something else very strange ended up happening...

Around 8:30 a.m., as we were rolling into Agra, Mr. Singh pulled up to the side of the road, and in jumped a very nice, very welcoming Agran man who would be our tour guide during our Taj visit. At first, we just thought that this was part of Mr. Singh's deal....he must be hooking us up with this guy out of the goodness of his heart! How cool of him!

No....that wasn't it.

Have you ever sat through a timeshare presentation? This day was like our Indian version of that.

Now, the upside to the arrangement was that Mr. Tour Guide was extremely knowledgable about the Taj, and he did seem to have some sort of clout as we toured, kind of like he was a Taj-approved tour guide. Directions that were posted on signs, he blatantly told us to ignore, and everywhere he went, people seemed to get out of the way. The tour through the Taj grounds was lovely, albeit a little rushed, which we understood more later.

The downside was.....well, there were a few downsides.

The major downside for him was that we didn't have much extra money to spend. Sorry, man. We don't care about trinkets at this point; we just want to get home with our son.

For us? Well, it started like this...

A few minutes after Mr. Singh had picked up Mr. Tour Guide (TG), he dropped us off at the point close to the Taj where cars could no longer drive. After that point, tourists had to ride in bicycle-powered automobiles big enough for the 5 of us. TG gave us a wonderful history of the Taj (I can still hear his voice saying "Shah Jahan" as he talked about the emperor who built the Taj for his wife.) while we were driving, and soon we had arrived.

This was also the day that I decided to try out my Moby Wrap...didn't even bring the Ergo that we had been using the whole trip with us. What was I thinking?

We get out of the automobile, and I have to wrap that crazy thing around my body and try to get Tom in it. Keep in mind that I'm groggy and that TG is in a hurry. Not a great combo....and his impatience began to show. This man with the big smile on his face had a scowl hidden behind it which could just barely be made out. He did not like the fact that he had to wait for me, something that should have been a clue to us of things to come.

I finally get the Moby on (sort of), and we proceed to enter the Taj grounds via a rarely-used gate (Thank you, Mr. TG!).

Upon going through security, we had to separate by gender. One of the male security guards was fascinated by Rex, and we would eventually find this to be a pattern. Not only was he probably the palest person at the Taj that day, but he was also one of the smallest. Children his age simply were nowhere to be seen. There were a couple of school groups touring, but they were teenagers. Rex was by far the youngest (aside from a few babies being held by their mothers), so the combination of how he looked was something that drew LOTS of attention. Thankfully, TG protected Rex by grabbing his arm, pulling him away from the curious, awkward security guard, and giving a little lecture, presumably about job propriety. This is one place where I appreciated TG's tenacity immensely.