When we arrived in Agra, it became clear that monsoon season was in full swing. We walked around the old city, in search of a good place to admire the Taj Mahal from afar. Entrance to the Taj is quite expensive, about $20, so we decided we wanted to save our entrance for the next morning, when we could enjoy the sunrise and hopefully avoid the torrential rain.
Some young Indian boys playing in the rain. One of them found a mouse in the gutter and brought it over to show us.
After a while, the rain abated and we walked to the river bordering the Taj Mahal. Here we had our first glimpse of the famous building.
We could only see the back of the building, but it was illuminated beautifully by the colorful sunset. We stayed by the river with our British friends Farah and Steve and talked with some local Indian students.
The group on the far right is a bunch of Indian students and policeman talking to Dana.
Indian postgraduate studies are conducted in English. However, most Indians learn a very formal version of English that sounds pretty humorous to us Americans. Shopkeepers call us “madam” and they call the male travelers “good sir”.
When talking with the Indian university students, one used the word “congruent” to say that two things were the same. He then described the annoying monkeys that steal tourists’ sunglasses as “dreadful”. Dana and I have spent the past couple weeks describing everything bad as “dreadful”. Definitely an underused word in the English language.
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