I only spent one night in Agra but had two whole days there, thanks to the wonders of the Indian railway system. It seems like you can get to a bewildering number of destinations from pretty much any major town. It was thus that I found that a night train runs from Varanasi to Agra once a day. However this is a pretty popular train so rather than the air-conditioned sleeper carriage that I had been hoping would be my introduction to Indian railways, I had no option but to travel plain old 'sleeper class'.
In 'sleeper class' the bunks are stacked three high and air is provided by big fans and open windows behind steel bars to stop thieves climbing in during the night. But I had a reserved bunk up on the top tier, and actually I got a reasonably comfortable night's sleep. But this was not before the police moved through the carriages and made all the foreign tourists read a 'guidance note' on how to avoid being drugged and robbed (top tip: don't eat or drink anything you haven't paid for!). Oh good. And the 'good book' made the point that trains to/from Varanasi are particularly vulnerable to crime. Oh good again. My pillow that night consisted of both my bags, chained to the bunk itself.
I woke up before dawn, for the third day in a row, as I wanted to make sure I didn't miss the stop. I needn't have bothered as with a little help from a fellow tourist (a german civil engineering student... ooh we had a right riveting conversation!) I discovered we were still a way off. Nearly two hours delayed in fact... turning a 13 hour ride into a 15 hour one... welcome to India! To be honest this didn't matter - it really is a tad ridiculous to try to check into a hotel or guesthouse at 7am, and aside from the Taj Mahal and a few other things there isn't THAT much to do in Agra... two days was plenty. And anyway the next morning I saw the same train rolling in about four and a half hours late, so it seems I got off lightly!
Anyway, back to Agra. You could probably sum up Agra as a city of total contrasts. Thanks to history it has been blessed with the Taj Mahal, which is a truly beautiful building, as well as Agra Fort and some other sights which are equally distracting. Unfortunately the city of today that surrounds these sights is a dump. Even the good book describes it as 'one of India's least prepossessing cities'. Thankfully my chosen guest house was very nice indeed.
I didn't go to the Taj on the first day because it was Sunday, so there would be loads of domestic tourists. Plus, it looks best either at sunrise or sunset, and it's boiling hot in the middle of the day. But hang on, that advice goes for pretty much everything else I've seen in India! In both Varanasi and Agra, the phenomenon of the mid-afternoon lull is known... that time when you've exhausted your morning's buggering about, had lunch, but then it's too hot or too early to go do the next thing. Resolving to avoid this if at all possible, I got the nice people at my guest house to charter a taxi to take me out to Fatehpur Sikri for the afternoon. The drive took almost an hour and a half each way, to cover just 40km. Again, welcome to India!
Hannah wrote back in June about her visit to Fatehpur Sikri with Pam, and noted how frustrating it can be to visit sites of such beauty while being constantly harangued by touts, beggars, hawkers, and 'official' guides. I paid over the odds for a guy to show me around the large mosque - which was truly amazing - and when this was over he started to lead me back down the hill towards the access road. 'Hang on' I said, 'you haven't shown me half of it yet!' Realising the scam was up, I paid the 'official' guide his money and headed over to the old palace buildings, which were thankfully a lot more serene, maintained as they are by the Archeological Survey of India and protected by a big fence. Needless to say, I had another guide to 'accompany' me around the site.
The next morning I rose before dawn for the fourth day in a row, and got down to the Taj to try to make the most of the early morning light. I was unlucky that the water features dividing the lawn had been drained, but I think you should be able to tell from the photos below that I didn't leave disappointed.
I then had a whole day to kill before taking the evening Shatabdi express train to Delhi. There was no point getting to Delhi earlier, as Hannah was flying back to Delhi from Orissa the same day, and had said she wouldn't be home until 9 or 10pm. So I got an auto-rickshaw to drive me around for a couple of hours, crossing a ridiculously congested and narrow bridge to the opposite side of the Yamuna river, to see the Taj reflected in the river, and to visit the 'Baby Taj'.
The 'Baby Taj' is called thus because it is smaller than the Taj Mahal and in fact predates its big brother by about 30 years. It's also a tomb, housing the remains of Mumtaz Mahal's father (Mumtaz Mahal being the woman to whom the Taj Mahal is dedicated). Nearly 400 years old, it still represents one of the finest examples of islamic Mughal architecture in India.
After lunch I waded through the by now familiar mass of touts, beggars, hawkers, and 'official' guides to visit Agra Fort. Much bigger than the Taj, I spent a couple of hours here; wandering through the maze of buildings erected within the fort was very rewarding: beautiful white marble palaces juxtaposed with red sandstone ruins. And a view of the Taj.
I still had time to kill before my train so I farted around on the Internet for a bit, and ate dinner at my guest house. I had checked out at 10am and was by now feeling quite sweaty and skanky! Bored, I arrived at Agra Cantonment station a bit too early, and headed to the platform. Where I was besieged by scammers and begging children. So I left and went outside, only going back down to the platform about 5 minutes before the train was due to pull in. This tactic worked up to a point, that point being that the train was an hour late! By the time I got to New Delhi station it was midnight and I was an hour and a half late.
Note: New Delhi station is one of the worst places in India for the tired and weary traveler, and midnight is an exceedingly bad time to arrive there. A taxi tout latched on to me, and despite my colourful language he would simply not f**k off. The 'official' pre-paid taxi office wanted 1300 rupees to get to GK1 i.e. Hannah's neck of the woods. I laughed at them and left. The taxi tout changed his tune a little and we eventually agreed on a still quite inflated 500 rupees. Then despite the fact that my taxi driver had a mate along for the ride (this happens with auto-rickshaws too... still no idea why!) we got hopelessly lost trying to find Hannah's address. Only after I rang Hannah, and she spoke to the driver's mate in broken Hindi, did we make some progress. I had hoped to get here about 10pm, and it was now quarter to one in the morning. Again, welcome to India!
Robin
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