Bharatpur and Agra was a whirlwind weekend trip. We went to the Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary in Bharatpur, but ended up seeing very few birds. Because of the dry monsoon season last year, the parts of the sanctuary that are generally wet have all fried up. We ended up biking on gravely paths for 6 hours and getting accosted regularly by bands of monkeys. The bike riding was interesting--the "one-size-for-all"bike was so big for me that at the lowest point the pedal goes, my toe barely reached. However, I am proud to say that I learned to mount the bike rapidly, and got pretty good at falling sideways to dismount! At night, staying at the Falcon Guesthouse with an energetic Punjabi hostess, was delightful.
Agra was a fast day. Marty, Claire, and I boarded our train, got to Agra, and went straight to the Taj, where foreigner price is 750 Rs. and Indian price is 20 Rs. They assumed I was Indian and I was very happy to receive the 3750% discount. Instead of waiting in line, we paid a man who has connections with the men that tear tickets at the gate (who does this professionally) and skipped the long queue (cutting in front of everyone else). The Taj Mahal was as majestic as promised, and looks just as stunningly fake in real life as it does in pictures in books, on pamphlets, and on the internet. Though I had braced myself for the worst surrounding environment possible, I found that I was not nearly as harassed as I thought I would be, and got to the Taj with Claire and Marty relatively without a hitch. We took all the necessary tourist pictures and had a good time.
Next, we went to the Agra Fort, from which one gets more views of the Taj from across the river. The Agra Fort itself is gorgeous, with manicured lawns, gorgeous archways, and different types of architecture everywhere.
From there, we boarded a bus back to Jaipur, making it back around 2am.
The next weekend, we went to Haridwar and Rishikesh. We reached Haridwar on the day of Shivratri, one of the holy days of the Kumbh Mela. Our bus ride was surprisingly lovely, but as soon as we stepped out, we were in an entirely different world. All buses coming into Haridwar had been re-routed to stop in the middle of a huge dirt field right outside of the city. We stepped right into a sea of yelling, begging, and general crowded chaos. The entire city had been closed, due to the fact that approximately 5 million pilgrims were walking through it to get to the holy points of the Ganges. "According to Hindu mythology, Haridwar is one of the four places where a drop of the nectar of immortality or 'amrit' fell from the pitcher or 'kumbh' when Garuda, the divine bird of Lord Vishnu, was spiriting it away from the demons after a pitched battle. " (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Thousands-of-devotees-at-Maha-Kumbh-for-Mahashivratri-bath-/articleshow/5563997.cms) THe pilgrims are to start their holy dips in the Ganges after midnight. Anyway, as soon as we got off the bus around noon, we were informed that no buses were really coming in or out of the city anymore, which posed a bit of a problem, since we had hotel reservations for Rishikesh that night. Luckily, as we went around trying to eavesdrop on conversations our fellow passengers were having over the sounds of the loudspeakers repeating "dhakka-mukki bilkul mat kijiye! (Do not push each other at all!)", we heard a couple of people talking to a police man nearby mention Rishikesh. We decided to attach ourselves to them. The very sweet brother and sister (both probably in their 20s) took care of us as if we were family. We alternately took cycle rikshaws (the only form of transportation available then) and walked with them (and with 5 million other pilgrims) in Haridwar for about two hours, and the brother told us that he would not leave us until he had us on an auto to Rishikesh, which is exactly where he got us. We boarded the lovely huge autorickshaw with 5 others and the driver, and made it to Rishikesh in 30 minutes!
We fell in love with Rishikesh as soon as we reached it. Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganga, surrounded by Ashrams, locals, and new-age hippies just trying to find themselves, we seriously contemplated never leaving. We wandered around the Lakshman Jhula area that night and scouted out the white water rafting place, Red Chili. We woke up early the next morning, and had the best breakfast of our lives at the Flying Tiger Cafe, a new-age restaurant owned by the woman from Chicago who wears lovely plaid-shirt-and-saree or saree-and-blazer combinations and serves the most amazing food. We came back for lunch (papaya lassis, tofu and mushroom burger with avacado and yak cheese and beet cole slaw and chips) and breakfast (thick whole-wheat bread with liberal amounts of butter and apricot jam; pancakes with ginger, cocoa powder, butter, and bananas) the next day.
That day, we white water rafted (with Bheem and jeevan as our guides, +3 men in kayaks as our rescue team) through rapids with names such as "Hugs and Kisses," "Three Blind Mice," "Crossfire," and "Return to Sender." We body surfed some of them, too and were, you know, cleansed of all our sins! Then, we jumped in from some boulders about 20 feet high. The latter part of the day, we explored more of the area, sat on the banks of the Ganges listening to an old man with long hair and beard play beautiful flute pieces, and went to an amazing terrace restaurant with unreal views of the Ganges for dinner. Oh, and then we learned that the bus we booked back to Jaipur was canceled.
So, the next morning, we left early (first to the Flying Tiger Cafe, of course) and found a bus to Delhi, hoping to get back to Jaipur from there. When we got into Delhi, a few rickshaw drivers followed us around as usual, and took us to a travel agency. We booked a bus back to Jaipur, but had to be driven to the boarding place of the bus. We got back into a small rickshaw (Claire, me, Ali, and Katie in the back, Amanda in front with the driver and a man from the travel agency). On the way to the boarding place, our rickshaw...hit a cycle with two men on it. Our rickshaw driver jumped out, and from there, everything happened fast. About 20 men gathered, the ones on the cycle had their belts off and hands around our rickshaw driver's neck before I could even blink! We stayed in the rickshaw, hurriedly discussing whether it would be safer to jump out and run, or to stay inside, but as this was going on, our rickshaw driver jumped back in, only to have a man come on the other side of the rickshaw, where Amanda was sitting, and trying to punch our rickshaw driver by reaching over Amanda (but really, he would have hit Amanda in the face in the process). Protective mother-lion side kicking into gear, Claire pointed very emphatically at the aggressor, shouting NO! Which apparently was enough for him to top and stare confusedly at the rickshaw packed full of foreigners. Shaken up and yelling, our rickshaw-walla drove us to the street where we were to be picked up. This narrow street, we realized, was pretty much in the middle of the Indian version of a ghetto, and the sun had just set. There was no sign of a bus, but thankfully, as we discussed this fact, it drove up, barely fitting in the skinny lane. We boarded the bus, which seemed very nice, and hoped for the best. An hour into the trip, we realized that the goal of the bus driver/travel agency was to pack the bus with as many people as possible, most of whom apparently wanted to keep the windows open all night. In two sweaters and a sweatshirt, I shivered through the night as the man in front of me coughed up a lung every few minutes (and went out for a smoke at every stop). Cold, tired, and back in Jaipur at 5am, we crashed in our beds to catch a few hours of sleep before going to class, after what was perhaps a little-too-eventful of a trip!
