Goodbye Delhi, Hello Agra!

Our second day in Delhi started with us thinking we were going to visit the lotus temple but ended up in something completely different. Before going to the lotus temple we wanted to buy our train tickets to jaisalmer, at least that was our thought at the time... as soon as we entered in the tourism shop everything changed, we almost bought all the train tickets for the north of India but we changed our mind at the last minute. Due to the high prices, we were a bit scared that it could be a scam. We decided to go to the train station but it wasn't easy at all, we talked with probably 10 different people and all gave us different information. At the end, based on all informatin, we decided to go to another tourism office. There, we spent a lot of time going through several travel options and ended up buying the train tickets to most of the places in the North except to Agra and Jaipur that we would go with a driver (Mr. Lucky). While the tourism officer was working on our papers Lucky drove us around Delhi, due to the late hour we decided not to go to the lotus temple and went to the places that Mr. Lucky suggested: India Gate, Sikh Temple and Hindu temple. From all of those, the one that touched us the most was the Sikh Temple. It is a place where the energy was different, we could feel the faith of people, we felt peaceful and serene. We had to take off our shoes, cover our heads, wash our hands and feet with holy water and then... Peace! We learned the all Sikh temples provide food and shelter to anyone that shows up, no matter the religion or color. It was nice to be in a place where the religion was so attached to the people, not only Sikh people but all the human beings. That was the highlight of the day.

Time to go back to the hotel, repack and be excited about our next stop in Agra. We are going to meet Mr. Lucky at 7am.

At 7am Mr.Lucky drove us to Agra. We were super excited because we had been only 2 days in Delhi where we had a bunch of adventures, chalenges and learnings which gave us a huge excitement about our next stop.
After 3h30min we arrived in Agra, the niche of Taj mahal. We took advantage of Mr.Lucky contacts to get a cheap room close  to the Taj. After negotiating the room price we said "bye bye" to the driver and scheduled to meet him on the next day to take us to the next stop. By that time we were on our own to explore Agra. We had a walk through the crowded and narrow streets of the city trying to find a place to eat cheap. However, we were still a bit worried about the bacteria in the food and ended up in a restaurant a little over budget. During our walk, we could see that people in Agra are way more relaxed than people in Delhi. People would still approach us and stare at us trying to make a deal but in a less intense way. In addiction, we also noticed that most of the work here is made with ancient techniques, like manually working the steel and selling cooked rice in the middle of the street.

Finally it was time to visit the great Taj Mahal!!! As expected there is a tourist price, here a tourist pays $11.5 and an Indian pays $0.33 but anyway what's $11 when we are talking about a World Wonder?! At least they gave us a bottle of water with the ticket, in India we need water almost as we need air (our record so far was 7.5L in one day).
It's impressive how something with the Taj's greatness was designed in the 17th century. We walked around the gardens taking hundreds of pictures. The beauty of the Taj is more in the outside than the inside, off course it is pretty but you don't have the feeling of how big it is when you are inside. One of the things that touched us the most was the quantity of Indians that asked to take pictures with us. They shyly got closer to us, sometimes they only said "hi" other times they had the courage to humbly ask for a picture. Some of them didn't even have a camera but they were happy to be in a picture with us in our own cell phones... In a picture they would never see again.
With their attitude, we felt what it is to be from a different color/culture and at the same time to be loved and appraised. It's a lesson that we will take for life.
Of course we stayed until the sunset, it was good because as the time went by, people started to leave and we got the chance of taking even better pictures.

Kika & Pedro