Agra and the Taj Mahal

This country continues to be quite overwhelming...
I took a train to Agra (to see the Taj Mahal!!) The train was scheduled to depart from Delhi at 5:40pm and arrive in Agra just before 10:00 pm, giving me just the right amount of time to get to my hotel and go to bed in order to get up really early in the morning to beat the tourist crowds at the Taj. As luck would have it, the train was rescheduled for 8:00pm, didn't actually leave until 8:30, and then took about 6 hours instead of the 4 hours it was supposed to take, which put me in Agra around 2:30am. By this time, everyone at the hotel was of course asleep, and I was locked out without a room! Calling the hotel in the attempt to wake up a sleeping receptionist was not successful, so I spent the next 20 mintutes or so wandering through the narrow streets of the bazaars of the Taj Ganj looking for any hotel that might be open. Of course I didn't find any, so I went back to my original hotel with the thought of sitting on the stoop waiting for it to open. It was around 3am by this time, and I figured I wouldn't have to wait any longer than 6:00am. Fortunately, this time I heard someone inside coughing, so I knocked really had (which in retrospect I should have done in the first place instead of calling...) until someone came to let me! Went to bed around 3:30, and by the time I woke u I didn't get to the Taj until 10:30 or so, by which point it was of course completely packed with tourists. Oh well.

I feel like there is a lot to say about India... but I can't quite put it into words yet. It is crowded and loud and dusty and there is garbage everywhere... but mostly what I notice is the noise... Or rather, I didn't notice that the noise was the main problem until I went to the Modern Art Museum in Delhi yesterday. Great museum! And, for reasons that I can't comprehend, it was almost entirely empty. I can't quite figure out why such a great museum in a city with SO MANY PEOPLE should be this empty. It wasn't cost, or location... much of the museum is fairly new, a year or two old so perhaps people don' know about it, but I suspect there is some other factor at work. Something else about the culture. Not to say that they don't appreciate art, but that the way they interact with art perhaps doesn't fit into the western idea of a museum? Anyways, I digress, because I was supposed to be talking about the noise. Inside the museum was so quiet that I find myself wandering around for a good half an hour and not even looking at the art. I was to busy enjoying the silence!

I don't know how much of what I've seen will apply to other cities and areas. I have only been to Delhi (one of the largest and densely populated cities in the world) and Agra (full of people because of the Taj Mahal) I hope to find some towns or cities that are quieter and more relaxed than I have seen so far...

(once again, sorry for the lack of pictures. I return to Delhi tomorrow, where my computer is, so I can hopefully post pictures then)