Taj Mahal, castes, a beach... and Moscow?

The Taj Mahal is unbelievable. There is a reason it's considered one of the seven wonders of the world. It reminded me of the statue of David in Florence… you’ve seen a million pictures of it, but when you see it in person, you are awe-struck by being in the presence of something so magnificent. It Also helped that we were there on Jan 1 at 7am as the sun rose. There were almost no people there. Our guide said he never sees it with this few people. We got amazing pictures where we are the only people in the picture… which our guide suggested might be the first time he’s seen this. Unfortunately, they would not allow pictures inside the monument... which was equally incredible.

Agra… the city with the Taj Mahal… has some of the worst poverty we saw in India. People are incredibly poor. The whole city is a sanitation disaster… with this pristinely clean and polished monument in the center. Where many of the palaces and temples in India have issues with garbage and urine, I assume anyone using the Taj Mahal as a bathroom would be shot on site. Traffic in Agra was also some of the worst we’d seen. There were intersections with traffic lights, but they were completely ignored. Cars would go full-speed (~30mph is ‘full-speed’ in India) into an intersection with horn honking and no clear way through all the traffic already there going in every direction. It was completely nuts and a little unnerving as a passenger.

The smog in Agra was nearly as bad as Delhi. The smell of smoke was everywhere.

After experiencing the Taj Mahal, we were off to Goa to enjoy a few warm days on a beach before returning to the cold Dutch winter. The daily temps were in the low-90s, but with a nice ocean breeze. It sounds too hot, but it was actually a nice place to swim, veg-out and order food by the pool before returning home. 

We touched on it a little already in the last block, but we also received a limited exposure to the Indian caste system. In Kajaharo and Agra we had guides from the Kshatryia caste (second highest). These guys told us with swelling pride why the caste system is good and inferred that the people in the lower castes wanted it this way. They spoke like the most hateful and evil racists you’ve ever heard… but it wasn’t racism. They described the lower caste and the untouchables (untouchables are below the lowest caste) like they were animals. They spoke about sub-intelligence and basic inferiority in nearly every aspect. Members from one caste cannot marry a member of another caste without facing ostarization from their families. Worse still was that you could never change the caste you were born into. It was disturbing to say the least, but we let them talk. We wanted Alex to hear this so we could discuss it as a family later. Let’s just say it provoked some interesting conversation.

To balance things out… our food tour guide from our first night in Delhi was born into the Sudra caste (lowest caste). Super bright kid (22-23yo) who earned a bachelor's degree and is working on a masters. He grew up in one of the slums in Delhi. For our last morning in Delhi before catching the flight back to Amsterdam, we invited him to breakfast to learn more. We asked him about the caste system, the slums, and many of the obstructions the poor face living in India (bad water, bad air quality, disease, hygiene, sanitation, discrimination, education, upward mobility, etc.). He said things are getting better, especially in the larger cities, but the caste system is still very much alive in India. He said the government is slowly making things better and that he is a direct recipient of some of the government reforms. His family worked their way into a home outside of the slums. Nearly all of his siblings (7 kids total!) are either successful, or on their way to being successful. Still, he said there are certain circles he’s careful about giving his name (your name gives away your caste). All in all, it was an extremely informative and positive way to end our trip. 

Almost.

This was our view outside the airport windows. Air quality was 376. You could actually see the smoky smog INSIDE the airport

Getting to the airport, getting through security, getting on the plane, and taking off were all a struggle, which other than Goa seemed to be the theme of India. Then once in the air, we found out we’d be flying through Russia just North of Moscow for our direct flight home.

I’ve never been so happy to finally get home… more than 2 hours late.