Adventures of Venom - 8!!!

Day 8 – 19th November 2007
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The day starts early for us – remember we had planned to go to the Taj. OK. Early means 6.00 AM. (Now, that’s midnight as far as I am concerned).
We planned to visit Agra and come back at night, so no luggage (what a relief!). We finally manage to leave home at 7.30 AM. It is freezing outside and more so, on the bike. Within the first 10 minutes, I realize that fashion will get me killed. So we stop by and I wear my jacket and gloves.

We stop by at a road-side dhaba for breakfast at 9.00 AM. The cook is still sleepy and it shows in the parathas that he makes. We eat the so-not-meant-to-be Gobhi parathas without much complaining and proceed on our way.

As is ALWAYS predictable, I need to use the loo, in the middle of nowhere. So VS is back on job again, hunting for a place. But there’s nothing available and I have to wait till Meerut. The McDonald’s on the highway is like god-sent for me. We order a thick shake so the usage of the loo looks genuine.

We reach Agra by around 12 noon. The first look at the Taj proves that the entire trip was worthwhile. The Taj is so much better than what we see in snaps and pictures. There is nothing as marvelous compared to this monument of love (I love to believe of Taj as the monument of love, even when VS eats my brains out on why Taj was built and how ShahJahan built it not coz he loved Mumtaz but coz he thought he was God, and blah blah)



We get our pictures clicked – you can’t go all the way and not click a picture of this marvel. I also clicked a picture of some stupid arse having carved her name (or maybe it was a guy who carved his girl fiend’s name).



We then went to the DayalBagh temple. On the way we briefly saw the Red Fort (yeah, before this day even I thought that Red Fort was in Delhi – but this one is much larger, and cleaner than the one in Delhi).
The Dayalbagh temple is a work of beauty – the pillars and the ceilings and the stairs are carved out of single slabs of marble. The work is more intricate and grand than that of Taj (that was a different era all together, so wrong comparison) or any of the Jain temples (again, wrong comparison – the Jain temples were even before the Taj).
No cameras allowed so no snaps.




By this time my shoes are in such shape that I could pass off as a begger. On our way back, we just stop by and pick up a pair of shoes for me – a much needed thing!








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Day 8 ends, I have lost track of the trip meter.