What an Amazing Week!

It has been an incredible and busy week!! We spent most of Monday on a train from Rishikesh to Agra. The scenery was amazing...lots of corn and rice fields, small villages, beautiful women wearing brightly colored saris working the fields, wild peacocks, men going to the bathroom on the side of the road (what impeccable timing!)...ha ha!

We were the first two tourists into the Taj Mahal on Tuesday. As soon as I saw the largest dome, I got the chills! The Taj Mahal is mesmerizing and such a beautiful expression of love. I always had the idea that the building was pure white marble. There are actually little grey and brown swirls in the marble which look amazing with the different angles of the sun, clouds, etc. Inside, the marble inlays are so intricate and colorful. We stayed in the grounds for over 5 hours and took hundreds of pictures. While I was taking one of those hundreds of pictures something/someone came up and aggressively reached into my pant pocket. I turned and wondered what on earth Gundula could possibly want so quickly from me when I realized that it was a monkey!! We've heard that monkeys are sometimes trained to steal from tourists...luckily all it got out of my pocket was lint!

I went on my own to the baby Taj Mahal, older, smaller and more detailed than the famous one. I hired a guy to pull me in a rickshaw by bicycle. He was the skinniest man alive and he had to get off the bike several times to pull my fat ass up hill. After touring the baby Taj and going through a small village to view the Taj from the opposite side of the river, the monsoon started. We pulled into a tunnel to avoid the rain where I bonded with all the other bicycle and motorbike guys. Twenty minutes later, it lightened up. We moved on and three minutes after that, it came down so hard that I was completely drenched from head to toe within seconds. I've never seen rain like it. I felt so bad for the poor driver but I paid him double what he asked (because of the rain and the size of my pants!). ;)

We spent Tuesday night on a train from Agra to Khajuarho. I was really excited to see this city because it is known for it's erotic carvings on the temples, where the Kama Sutra came from. There were 85 temples in the past, now there are less than 20 left. In reality, there are only 5 or 6 graphic carvings on each of the temples we saw. Pretty cool but I wouldn't recommend the city just for the carvings to anyone else. However, my time in Khajuarho has been the highlight of my time in India so far because of the people we've met.

On Wednesday, I made friends with a 13 year old boy named Suneel. He wanted to practice his English and we were hungry, so we invited him to join us for ice cream. He is a very bright, friendly kid with an infectious laugh. Two of his older, much 'cooler' friends, Guloo, age 17, and 'Tony', age 22 also joined us. We spent the next 6 hours talking and laughing, playing cards and drawing henna on each other. Suneel wrote 'I Love My India' on my right hand and on my left arm 'I love you' in Sanskrit. So precious!

Thursday, we toured the temples and then I spent some time in the afternoon playing cards with Suneel and his friends. We went to a local ceremony at a Shiva temple that was beautiful...blowing of conch shells, banging of gongs, lighting of incense, lots of kissing and bowing and praying to the lingam in the center of the temple.

Today, we tried to meet Suneel when he got out of school but he had already left on the bus. His teacher showed us around the school, I met with the principal to discuss important things like where I was from, if I was married or not and if I wanted to teach or not. The kids went wild seeing two foreigners at their school grounds. We took a ton of pictures of them (they love seeing themselves on the camera screen!) and had a blast letting them practice their English with us! Some of the older boys were playing cricket, so they let me take a few swings. I think they were impressed that I actually could hit the ball! It was so fun!

Once all the children had finally taken the bus home, the teacher invited us to his home. We met his wife, daughter, son, niece, nephew and the 5 people renting the room adjacent to his. Their home consisted of one room, maybe 15x20. They all sleep together in the same bed. He volunteered that he made 2,000 rupees a month, annualized to $480 a year. What different lives we all lead...very humbling indeed. His daughter liked to dance, so the Mom turned on music and she grabbed my hand and away we went. Gundula joined us and the three of us were putting on our best versions of Indian dancing...everyone was laughing, clapping. Tears started streaming down my face...such an incredible, unique and touching experience. Amazing!

I'm writing this in our room...we have tapped into an unsecured WiFi signal which is so nice to have. It's incredibly hot...I've never sweat so much doing absolutely nothing. There's a mouse in our room with us...she seems friendly enough and thankfully hasn't eaten all of our crackers on the shelf. So with that, Gundula, the mouse and I will say Namaste!