Start of week 4

Well, I have been here since January 4th and I am definitely ready to head home. Living out of a hotel for so long wears you down. And to be honest the food is starting to get to me. Everyday for lunch the cafeteria serves plain rice and a flavored rice. Additionally, 2 or 3 soupy sauces which can be put on the rice is also served. Always veg. I have gone across the street several times and ordered food but I have tried almost everything on the menu. Here are the dishes I like so far

Chicken Tandoori
Chicken Biryani
Katti kabob
all kinds of bread

The problem is not the food itself but having it so much. Even when I go to places that have western style food, it still is done in Indian fashion. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it but you get to a point where you want what you are comfortable with. Needless to say, bread will be purchased today and Peanut Butter and Jelly will begin making a significant appearance in my food rotation. For those wondering, my jar of peanut butter is half gone and jelly is almost full. I purchased some pseudo ritz crackers at work today and might try pb&j crackers

Smarda sent me a link from the Conan Obrien show it is absolutely hilarious. It is titled Indian Call Center. Here is the link, just scroll down until you see Indian Call center.
http://www.milkandcookies.com/keywords/conanobrien/
Some of the scenes in the street are spot on for where I am. You will see one of the 3 wheeler taxis that I have ridden in as well. The sketch itself is more making fun of tech support but it is worth watching. Even though the towers perrin help desk is located in the US, ours follows the same protocal as seen in the sketch.

So you are all wondering about my visit to Taj Mahal (translates to Crown of the Palace). It was awesome. We left work a little early on Friday to catch a flight up to Delhi. There we met up with the folks in gurgaon. Everyone was tired friday night and we knew we were getting up at 5:30 the next morning so we just went to the hotel restaurant until they asked us to leave because they were closing. Actually they didn't ask us to leave but they stopped serving beer and wine so we left. It was good to hang out with the entire group (kip, brian, brian, sheila, and dolly) so we could exchange war stories about our experiences. Lavnish was not around so we never saw him.

On Saturday at 6am we left the hotel for the train station. Our train departed around 7am and got us up to Agra around 11. We then had a private tour take us to the Taj. The Taj was amazing

It was built as a tribute to the Shah Jehan's favorite wife. He had 3 wives, christian, hindu, and muslim. The other 2 were only for political reasons. All of his documented children (14 in total) came from his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal. However, he did still have a harem of 2000+ ladies. And despite his mourning after Mumtaz's death, his appetites were still fulfilled.

The taj itself is tremendous to look at and hard to capture on film. Everything about it is perfectly symetrical. The only thing in the entire complex that is not symetrical is the tomb of Shah Jehan inside the mausoleum. Originally, there was supposed to be another Taj across the river for himself but after his son placed him under house arrest, the project never started. Between the marble and gems, it reflects lights of different color so depending on the time of day will determine what it looks like:

From Chinese Turkestan in Central Asia came Nephrite jade and crystal; from Tibet, turquoise; from upper Burma, yellow amber; from Badakhshan in the high mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, lapis garnets, sapphires, bloodstone, forty three types of gems in all - ranging in depth from Himalayan quartz to Golconda diamonds - were ultimately to be used in embellishing the Taj Mahal

here is some of the marble work on the main gate




We saw it in the middle of the day so it was very white.




But apparently at sunrise and sunset the colors reflected are different. Additionally, the park is open 3 days a month at night around the full moon which gives it an additional color. There is a lot of haze and pollution in the air which hinders the brightness. Apparently laws are being passed to reduce the pollution. But this time of year the haze is there. It really became apparent in some of my pictures from the fort which had a view of the Taj

After seeing the Taj, we went to a place that showed us how the actual gems were put into the marble. It was interesting. I picked up a sample from the gift shop there. Then we went to the Fort of Agra. This was the palace where the emperor lived. It wasn't like a medieval fort where the townspeople enter when under attack. This one was almost exclusively for the emperor. There were 3 different types of temples in there for each wife. There was a special market place where the king could select those lucky few to be added to his harem.

After the fort we saw how carpets are made. The hand made carpets were really expensive. Nobody picked up any of them because the cheapest one was about $400 (for a door mat). Some of the larger ones were about 2000 or 3000.

Then we went home on the train where food was provided