Report from India, Part 10: Day 3, Part 2 Agra Fort + 'When Indian traffic is too crazy even for Indians'

You know traffic is bad when a clearly experienced rickshaw driver stops the rickshaw for a second to wipe the sweat from the handlebars of his vehicle. More on that later.

After the Taj, we drove to the Red Fort in Agra (not to be confused with the one in Delhi, or ‘Dilli’, because going back would have been silly. :) It rhymes!)

MORE monkeys!

And some other things, like doors of various sizes:

And me being a people-watcher. Again. (See the sari post; many pics were taken here, including pompom girl) 

Watch out for the Dalek on the left...

The father of one of my best friends told us, while we were visiting Paris, that 'the best show in Paris' can be seen by picking any café on a major road, buying a drink (the price of a ‘seat’ at this show) and just watching the Parisians go by. We have discovered that the 'best show in India' can be seen by buying a ticket to any historic site, sitting down near a high traffic area and just watching the Indians go by.

One reason why you should go to a historic site in India and not a café is that people in the streets have two main goals “I want to get past you” or “I want to sell this to you”. Neither of these lend to good people-watching. At the historic sites, Indians, like the Parisians walking down a boulevard, are there to enjoy the sun, their day, time with friends and family, etc.

Puzzle gardens!

Arches

Here's a rather epic view of the Taj. All the domes working together to create an impressive sight!

More redness

And whiteness

And a stubborn bird (who cares about barbed wire anyway?)

Okay, back to traffic. Today was a festival. On the way to the Taj, we didn't see much going on. On the way back from the Red Fort....even our Indian driver seemed a bit overwhelmed. You know things are crazy when Indian traffic stops moving. Because of all of the motorcycles, rickshaws and bicycles there is almost always a little gap where you can scoot a few feet forward. But on our drive back there were several times, where not even a little scoot forward was possible.

We saw people sprinkled and colored by the colorful chalk (that I know from the Holi festival). There were 'large' (for Indian standards) trucks covered with large (for anyone's standards!) speakers and people or trailed by groups of people. Inevitably one or more of them would be dancing—men and women alike. Where there is music, there will be dancing. I think that's just a rule in India. And there is pretty much always music somewhere :D.

I decided to point-and-click as if my life depended on it so that you can begin to get a feel for what it was like. After we had gotten out of the worst of the traffic jam, I remembered that my camera can take videos—albeit silent videos. You just have to imagine honking horns ever 1-2 seconds. And the photos—yes, perhaps a few are iconic, but really, you just have to see them all. Here’s my post on traffic in general and here's a link to my dropbox for the virtual rickshaw tour. It's bouncy and blurry and dirty and crowded and colorful. Enjoy!