Through God's Country

In Thailand I was told India is God's country by a young Indian guy. So far I haven't even seen the first traces of God. I'm pretty tired already and it's still early in the day. Indian train stations are absolutely insane. Huge rats run along the perimeter of the stations and along the tracks. People sleep on the tile floors awaiting their trains. The locals avoid the walkways that lead from platform to platform and just jump down onto the tracks with their entire families and make their way to where they need to be. We take the walkway instead. Our train is really wide,a room almost, and just has padded benches for us to sit on. We try to sleep but our bench is a bit too small to get comfortable and I have a lady on my right leaned against the train wall. There's no air conditioning just fans and open windows. Every few minutes men pace down the isles yelling out what they are selling. The most common is "Chai, chai!" repeated at nauseum. Suddenly a bongo drum rings out from behind us in the doorway to our cart. A little boy in the isle comes into view. He suddenly starts dancing and girateing to the beat in the isles. He shakes his shoulders up and down and then leans foreword to orbit the ball attached to a rope pinned in the center of his baseball cap. As he turns toward us I realize his tiny face has a mustache painted across it and little circles for rosy cheeks have been added to complete the circus look.He continues his little act and suddenly I'm so tickled that I start to silently chuckle. I can no longer keep silent as the laughter grows into a painful belly laugh. My eyes begin to tear and my face starts to hurt. Olivier looks at me unable to figure out what is so funny. As I continue to laugh, the tears turn to tears of sadness. I realize that this boy has to do this for a living while his mother plays the drums for him to dance, and then I'm filled with sorrow for this child and the many just like him. I've been told that India can make you laugh and cry all in one minute but I couldn't picture the scenario that could possibly reduce me to such a mess. Now I'm pretty sure I hold the record for quickest elation to sorrow time in the Indian tourism category.This sudden burst of emotion could also be due to a serious lack of sleep. He finishes this two minute act by passing his little body through a hoop and then comes around with a pan for a bit of money (as pictured). He is one of very few children I have given money to on this trip. He deserves a few rupees for his show and for making me go through such an extreme roller coaster of emotions.

After our three hour journey, we have arrived in Agra, the city where the Taj Mahal stands. We find a lovely rickshaw driver who will be ours for the day for a mere eight dollars. We go to the post office to send some of Olivier's unneeded items back to Luxembourg. It takes forever but is a real experience. Before we sit down on some lawn chairs at a desk, a man is ordered to dust them off. He spanks the dust off with a rag and then we are gestured to the chairs. The place

looks like a huge warehouse and I wouldn't be surprised if his stuff never makes it home. They seem to be very confused by international mail because it takes them forever to figure out how to properly prepare the package. The rickshaw driver takes us to Red Fort to lock our huge backpacks in their cloakroom. Then we're off to the Taj Majal. There are two long lines to get into the gates of the Taj grounds, the men's line and the women's line. I stand with him in the men's line until the end where they split us off to search our bags behind some wardrobe screens. A security guard goes through my bag and sends me away to lock up my gnome and a couple of other random items. What the hell!? I storm away without Olivier knowing where I've gone since he is in the men's line on the other side of the screens. I walk past the long line of women and go looking for the lockers. I'm approached by tons of people directing me to "the lockers" that they all seem to be suspiciously enthusiastic to direct me toward. I'm really nervous because I don't want to lock my things in a locker where they'll get stolen. People keep approaching me and trying to get me to buy things which I'm used to by now, but right now I've got a shorter fuse. I just feel a scam coming on for some reason. This doesn't seem right but I have no other choice. I lock my stuff away, and then make my way back to the Taj grounds about five minutes away. I later open my locker to find everything untouched. They let me in and Olivier looks a bit puzzled as to where I've been. I explain that I hate India right now, and these ten minutes without him will go down in history as the worst ten minutes I've spent in this country. Not having a male with you in India is definitely overwhelming. We take our time at the Taj Majal which looks absolutely unreal against the clouds.

It's really magnificent. We are taken to a rug factory afterword where they show us how rugs are handmade.

We're exhausted and can't wait to board our night train that will take us through the night on to Varanasi, the city of light. We wait a long time until our train finally pulls in.

We board our train and order dinner, a full curry meal that we consume on my top bunk. We are so exhausted that we both get a really good night's sleep. We awake the next morning about fifty miles outside the city of Varanasi.