India, Day 2: "We've been Holi'd!"

India Day 2! We all loaded on the bus early and were on our way from New Dehli to Agra. It's normally about a 5 hour drive, but when you have a bus full of adventurous ladies with cameras, it takes about 8. Our first impromptu stop was at one of the local markets along the side of the road. Why? It just looked interesting.

Along the way you'll start to notice people that appear to have gotten in a water fight with food coloring. That's Holi, which is an annual festival celebrated throughout India, mostly characterized by people smashing brightly colored powder all over each other, and then dousing each other with water. Like this guy:

These kids were hamming it up with smiles until I turned the camera on them. Then they were all tough guys.

I managed to escaped the powder for the first few minutes, unlike Cara and Kim...

But then ran into these guys who were waiting right outside our bus.

I've been Holi'd!

We were only at the market for 15 minutes or so when we were shoo'd back on the bus by the traffic police. It seems that tourists never stop there and we were causing a bit of a traffic jam with people stopping and wondering what the special event was. So we were on our way again, but but stopped shortly wanting to see whatever this was. A huge statue of Shiva out in the middle of nowhere.

And then you turn around and there's horse carts zipping by!

And then there's this! Our guide wouldn't let us get out of the bus for this one, but it's a temple built to "rival the Taj Mahal". I don't know if they quite succeeded, but it was pretty cool.

Stop again! Water buffalo just roaming around! We don't have those in Singapore!

You know what I like the most about Indian women? Their everyday wear is a floor length dress with sequence and rhinestones.

Finally Agra. And our first view of the Taj from the bus window....

Here is the East Gate to the Taj Mahal, all ready for the Holi celebration that would start that night.

We headed to the Taj for a sunset viewing. We didn't actually go in, but this might have turned out to be a better view.

I liked these kids because they let me take their picture and didn't ask for money. They only asked if I had any pens, strangely enough. I gave them two I had taken from the last hotel we had stayed at, and they were thrilled.

There is a small muslim temple right next to the Taj Mahal, and while we were waiting for the sun to set they had a horn blowing for the call to prayer. The dogs seemed to enjoy it the most...