Scams abound

Why am I not surprised that we were scammed today?

Back up a bit....I awoke at 630 and went for breakfast in the restaurant in the hotel. After being offered "rotten yogurt," I politely declined and had some sort of deep fried naan bread for breakfast. When I wandered downstairs, Russel and Christine had just arrived, so we had a cup of coffee and headed for the train station.

When trying to get in, a little man refused to let us enter and kept insisting we were at the wrong place, and rustled up a rickshaw for us and off we went to a tourist office. Well, the guy in there tried to sell us n 6 days of a private car for $280 EACH! We declined, and he was telling us that trains do not run where we want to go. We were fairly certain he was wrong, but he sounded convincing. He then went on a ramble about karma and what goes around comes around and we should not be so suspicious of all Indians. We somehow (I blame foggy headed jet lag) agreed to pay 30$ each for a private car with NO AC to Agra.

Well, not only were we charged 5 times too much, but the 200km took us 6 hours! Along the way we saw a parade of women dancing with coconuts and such on their heads, cows, a herd of sheep, monkeys, pigs, and insane driving. I think the best was when all traffic suddenly routed onto the wrong side of the road, and all driving was head onto coming traffic like a giant game of chicken.

We were subjected to random stops along the way, including lunch at a vastly over priced tourist restaurant. We saw monkeys doing backflips, which is quite sad given the size of the sticks the men carry to beat the monkeys.

When we got to Agra after a long and harrowing journery, our driver suddenly stops and says that cars are not allowed to go where our hotel is located. We get shuffled into 3 bike rickshaws, and after going 10 min into the city it turn out our drivers are lost and we turn around. I soon see a beautiful white building that looks like an Oasis, and start thinking "please let that be our hotel!"

I nearly fainted with joy when we were dropped at the giant white gates, and inside we went. through security checks and all. Once in our rooms, a beautiful pool beckoned and we lounged in the sun and water for the rest of the afternoon.

Tomorrow we are off to the Taj Mahal and attemping the next leg of the journey!