India - Delhi & Agra

We had heard so much about how dirty and chaotic India is, so perhaps we were mentally prepared for much worse. Just as I was thinking 'this is not THAT bad,' some man grabbed my behind. Oh well.

Our friends Ben & Susan (a.k.a. Mr. & Mrs. Brooklyn) are travelling with us in India for two weeks. Hopefully we will still be friends at the end the two weeks.

We made the mistake of visiting the Taj Mahal in Agra on a Sunday; the painfully slow security line to get into the place was a mile long. This is us in line - the pink gate in the horizon is the entrance:

Touts were helping foreign tourists cut line for a fee - they would literally push tourists to the front of the line amid loud complaints from other people. After one hour in the line, I was sorely tempted to hire a tout, but Bill said no, we wait in line like everyone else, which I thought was a very mature thing to do. Yelling "cheaters!" to other tourists that did hire the tout, on the other hand, was probably not so mature.

Ben, Susan and Bill at Taj Mahal:

These kids wanted their picture taken:

View from an auto-rickshaw:Street monkeys:

Bill's $1.5 haircut in Delhi:

On Christmas eve, we went to Ben's friend's friend's sister's ex-roommate's wedding in Delhi - call us the wedding crashers. All dressed up for the wedding:

Bill and Ben's outfits are compliments of our friend Jimmy - thanks, Jimmy! Everyone had assured Bill and Ben that it was common for men to wear the traditional outfit to a wedding. Nope, all other men at this wedding were wearing regular suits.

Bill and Ben looking at the choreographed dance number of the groom's friends to Bollywood music: