Cows, Monkeys and Pigs
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2008
1
84
93
Trip End
Jan 31, 2009
Agra,
Uttar Pradesh,
India
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Shatabdo Express took off promptly at 6.15am. It was a bit more comfortable than a Metro North ride between New York and New Haven. They served tea and biscuits, but the train was smelly. Let me remind you that this was a relatively expensive tourist train.
Arrived at the Agra Cantt. Train Station in 2.5 hours. A tuc tuc driver immediately jumped onto me. I went to the foreigners booking window to get a train ticket to Varanasi, for tomorrow night. Only sleeper class was available. I was thinking of buying a more expensive 3AC ticket in order to minimize the risk of theft. Oh well... I paid less than what I had paid for the Delhi-Agra trip, for an over 12 hour ride.
For 4 rupees, I phoned the highly recommended Tourists Rest House to see if they had rooms available. They did. So, I took a tuc tuc to the guesthouse. It offered the same quality as my place in Deli for only $10. The room even had a TV.
Walked Northeast through the city to get to the Agra Fort. I had left Taj Mahal for sunrise tomorrow. This small Indian city with a population of roughly 1.3 million was exhausting. They were way too many people; the roads were confusing, and the buildings were about to collapse. Moreover, it didn't have any of the developed areas of refuge that the capital had. As if this wasn't enough, the touts, especially the cycle rickshaw drivers wouldn' let me walk in peace. 2 of them literally followed me for 30 minutes, although I ignored them completely.
Agra Fort (1565) was not that different from the Red Fort in Delhi. It was a bit older, since Agra was the Mughal capital before Delhi.
Khas Mahal, a part of the Fort, is where Emperor Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son. The orientation of this palace allowed him to gaze out at the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum of his beloved wife.
I met a Brazilian couple inside the Fort. Actually, I had briefly spoken to them about accommodations, on my way off the train. They had annoyed me with their anxious, we-know-everything attitude. In reality, they didn't even know that touts do not attack you until you step out of the train station. As I chatted with them further, I liked them less and less. The girls held a masters in anthropology and the guy had received his PHD in mathematics. They were a nerdy couple who had limited street smarts. They weren't even aware of this deficit. I never saw them again...
On my way out of the Fort, I realized that I was running out of rupees. Even though I had small dollar notes, nobody here seemed to enjoy dealing in dollars. Sharp contrast with Southeast Asia... As I was searching for a bank, I got miserably lost. When I finally came across 3 random banks, none of them could exchange dollar. The only one that could, in theory, do it could not, because their computers were down. Gave up and made my way back to the guesthouse. The LP maps for Agra are useless.
There were as many cows, monkeys and pigs roaming around as the number of humans!
I was fed up with this city. So, I ended my sightseeing program and retreated to the relatively peaceful, palm-covered courtyard of my guesthouse.
Took a tuc tuc to change $100; had a $1 tomato sou made of ketchup, and attempted to take advantage of the 25 rupee/hour internet. However, there were frequent electricity outages and the characters on the keyboard were unreadable. Gave up and went to bed. Tomorrow was going to be yet another early morning. Would do anything for Taj Mahal at its best...
