Blog #77: Agra

After last night's unfavorable cab ride, I was ready for a good day today. I just really needed something to work out in our favor to assure me that we would be okay. Any sign would do.

I got the sign!

By a pure stroke of unadulterated luck, we managed to plan our visit to the Taj Mahal on World Heritage Day, which is celebrated by giving free access to World Heritage Sites (something we learned very recently, i.e. upon our arrival to Agra). And, although the Taj is obviously worth every penny, I wasn't opposed to saving twenty bucks.

As you could imagine, the Taj is breathtaking. There is no way I could formulate the words to express how beautiful and majestic the place is. Simply being in the presence of a place like that is powerful... is a feeling I can't describe and frankly don't want to. I could speak for hours about the details of my experience, but it will never impact any of us like standing in the shadows of those ornately designed tons of marble would. More than anything, it is a place to make one humble.

As I lay now in a sleeper bus on my way to Varanasi, which I waited an hour and a half past the scheduled pick up time for, I am humbled again. Traveling is not simply seeing beautiful things and eating good food, but is asking ten people where your bus stop is and waiting too long for it to show up. It's not all candid Instagram photos walking down a cobblestone street, but standing in line and sprinting to the best spot in front of the Taj to snap a pic before 30 more people make their way into the frame. It's long days and rebooking flights and uneasy stomachs and 12 hour bus rides and confusion and frustration and many many things in between.

But it's worth it. It's so, so worth it.