I had other things to do this weekend and so never managed to tackle Agra. My pictures are almost all of the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, but I'm not sure I could have managed to capture the chaos of the streets of Agra with a mere camera anyway.
Each of my guides, when hearing my itinerary, wanted to know why I was going to Bharatpur one day, then driving all the way back to Jaipur, only to drive back to Agra the next day. It would have made more sense to stay in Agra and then go to Bharatpur -- less than an hour away -- from there.
And if I'd had more time to plan, I probably would have done that. But I didn't intend to go to Agra at all in the beginning; I planned my days around Jaipur. I booked the Agra trip right before I left because it seemed silly to go all the way to India and miss the Taj Mahal. It was $400 for the one day trip to Agra and back from Jaipur, and I wasn't looking forward to all of those hours in a car, but who knows if I'll ever get back to India? So I gritted my teeth and booked it.
And I'm so glad I did. The hair-raising drive back in the rain may have taken years off my life, but I loved the view of India I got from the highways and rest stops. And now I never have to go back to Agra, and that's a good thing, too. If I had been staying there, I think I would have hated it, and it would have colored how I felt about India. It was too much, in every possible way.
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