Agra to Delhi

The morning started with some rain, but cleared time enough for us to have a nice visit of the Taj Mahal with our brothers in Christ. The building is spectacular and over 500 years old. It took 20,000 workers 17 years to complete. There are two very large red sand stone structures on the right and left of the Taj, one a mosque, the other really only there for symmetry, which they call the guest house, but no one stays there. The tombs, the art work, the white marble stone construction was all amazing. Contrary to that visage, was our train ride from Agra to Delhi. We rode on a sleeper train with 4 "bunks" to a small room with drawn sheets for "privacy." This was humbling, but at least we had a reserved area and didn't have to content with the locals for a free for all fight for remaining seats. A picture of the train station is below as well. Arrived in Delhi a day after a huge demonstration took place over the women's rights movement still going on after the rape crime that happened several weeks ago. We are definitely in the big city here, maybe second only to Mumbai (Bombay), and the capital of the country. Most in the north here speak Hindi, and being closer to the Pakistan border, more show of military ground and air bases. We stop here for a day to see some of the sights, and to pick up more preaching brethren on our way east to Siliguri, Imphal, and Calcutta.  Highlight of the day was the guide driver, after pulling over to show us the Red Fort in Agra, on a one way, two lane road, ... turned around, yes did a 180 and drove in the opposite direction of traffic to get us back to the intersection.  My brother Chuck would love it here....