Harper Reed's Blog

Harper Reed's Blog

Musing from a normal person doing normal things

10 May 2004

india. i am in.

Please note: This post was written some time ago (20 years ago). My perspectives, knowledge, and opinions may have evolved significantly since then. While the content might still offer valuable insights, I encourage readers to consider it in the context of its publication date.

so I arrived in india. it is pretty awesome. quite a change from california where I have secretly been living for the past ten years.

it all started on thursday. the night befopre I was to leave for india. hehe. my friend mike and nic came over from colorado and we hung out. we went to sushi and then to crobar. things got crazy and mike inadvertently got really drunk and assaulted red haired matts gf. so he got kicked out of crobar and proceeded to be sad all around chicago. we went to exit then home. I woke up with a couple HUGE bruises on my body from wrestling nic and went to breakfast with morgan. it was nice to see her but got sad. I am lame. haha. I totally was bummed out. but then I left for india. and I got better.

i have sooo much spam. I need to install that spam filter crap

so anyway. I flew to frankfurt. then I flew to delhi. where I was picked up by my driver(who drove 100km/h everywhere). I went to bed. and then got up at 7:00am and drove to agra where the taj mahal resides.

now I must be clear about this cuz it sounds dumb. the taj mahal is quite possibly the most amazing thing I have seen. it was incredible. I have never been in a place like that. it is so perfect. and it is all marble. marble seems to me a rather “hard” medium to make a huge thing out of. and it apparently only took 22 years to make. wtf. ;) (oh and the guards at the taj kept messing with me - the first one kept touching my earrings and saying nice - and the second ome I woudl find a wife inside if I didn’t already have one. it ruled)

in agra I went to a place where I was able to see the family that orginally did the inlay work that is on the taj. they are a bunch of kids sitting in a room making marble inlay stuff. it is pretty insane. I got some.

i also picked up a rug. haha.

my guide at the taj was awesome. he knew so much. he also took me to the red fort - which is also awesome. these monuments don’t really make sto me. they are so incredible. both the taj and the red fort are things that I never really dreamed of actually existing. quite something. after taht we had some food. quite nice. wait. the order is screwed up. food. then red fort. also. everything is owned by tata (my hosts here). my “personal guide” (a really awesome guy who basically took care of me and was my company for the day in delhi) and I just hung out most of the day. it was seriously awesome. he told me all the secrets of india.

then we drove back. I saw and elephant and a monkey. also.. apparently a new trend is to buy the chassis of the truck and not get the body. it is cheaper and you can buy/build the body elsewhere. haha. wtf. I want to put a small car body on the chassis of the truck. <br

i am taking a lot of pictures. they are probably all poor. but yea.

so I got back to delhi about 8 and I was incredibly tired. so I slept. and sleep I did. except for the dream of the rat eating my face (??was it a dream!?) everything went well.

i woke up this morning and flew to bangalore (which is quite nice - a lot more mild than delhi). jet airways is pretty awesome. almost better than lufthansa. and then I took a drive to my guest house. which is really nice. (btw - they DO refill the water bottles. I caught them.. hehe. well they refill them with purified water - but I don’t trust taht stuff - only aquafina for me. good thing pepsi lives in india too). the guest houses are so so nice. I can’t really describe what these small apartments are like. they are like in the movies. with balcony’s overlooking pretty scenery and whatnot. it is pretty insane. I feel like I am in a foreign land. hah.

so that brings me up to date. tomorrow I will attempt to post pictures. also. I will attempt to get a phone with sms so I can bug all you ;) and post my photolog pictures. sad day I can’t now. stupid lack of prep on my part. ;) hehe.