Another Indian horror story!!!!!!!!!!
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
120
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Delhi,
India
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
We gave up on the whole sightseeing thing and went to try and sort out our flights to Goa. We wanted to go with Jet as they offer discounts to under 30's but the people in Jet didn't think they flew that route. When we explained the routing etc they advised us to go elsewhere as the travel agents get discounts and it would be cheaper. We tried one but it was having a power cut and they couldn't understand the routing either. We gave up on that too and went for a McDonalds instead. We did eventually sort it out with our hotel after discovering that the prices on the web site are only for Indian nationals - another example of foreigner tax. To fly from Udaipur to Goa via Bombay is much more expensive than our flights from Bangkok to Calcutta to get into India - how does that work?
19th - Part 1.
Got over to the Red Fort early while it was quiet and it was worth sticking around for. The red sandstone walls of the fort spread quite a way and were built between 1638 and 1648 by Shah Jahan. He never actually moved his capital to Delhi (then Shahanabad) from Agra as he was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb in the Agra Fort (see next entry!) This was the time of the great Mughals when they rode through the streets on elephants although it's hard to imagine now. Then, the sacred Yamuna river flowed past the walls but it is now over 1km away. Within the walls are several beautiful palaces and halls made from marble with pietra duray inlay work (thousands of semi precious stones) in intricate patterns. These include the Diwan-i-am (Hall of Public Audiences) where the emperor would sit to hear complaints and disputes from his subjects and the Diwan-i-khas (Hall of Private Audiences), which housed the famous peacock throne that is now in pieces in Iran. Also within the walls are a couple of interesting little museums. One regarding the fight against the British for independence looked really interesting but was too dark to read but another about the Mughals were good. There were hideous knives intended to hurt a lot and a fab chain mail jacket where each ring is inscribed with the names from the Quaran. Detracting from the beauty were the ugly barracks built by the British and still inhabited by the Indian Military and the scores of workers supposedly renovating areas around the grounds. Nonetheless we had a lovely stroll about the fabulous buildings and actually took a few photos as our poor camera hasn't seen much to capture lately.
Part 2 - persons of a nervous disposition are advised NOT to read the following.
The afternoon began with a fight with our hotel after they tried to charge us 4% credit card charges for our flights. They knocked it down to 3% and after we went to walk away leaving them seriously out of pocket, they told us where the cashpoint was a few doors down. When we asked about this before it was more than 20 minutes walk away! We then had to rush down the street to the chaotic train station and try to find our platform etc. A couple of minutes after arriving, a train pulled in and was due to leave at 1.45pm making our train 5 minutes late. In the end our train was 5 HOURS late. We spent our time swatting flies, sitting among the homeless - some in various states of decay and deformity, and trying to avoid being urinated on or spat on. About 3pm the train on our platform eventually left and I carried on reading and Pip carried on looking at the now empty tracks. Suddenly he stood up and said "oh God" but couldn't get any more words out. Assuming he had seem something gross like huge rats or at worst a dead animal, I looked up at what he had seen. It took me a few seconds to work out what it was but that sight will stay with us now forever. Straight in front of us was a man lying neatly between the 2 tracks and his freshly severed head was about a meter away from the outer track. Obviously horrified we got our stuff and moved away and watched what happened from a distance. A small crowd, including women and children, gathered, looked and walked on with hardly a raised eyebrow. I soon went into work mode and began to work out what had happened. He must have crawled beneath the train (as many people do) and laid his neck across the track and waited for the train to pull away thus giving him a very sure and quick suicide. How long he waited for the train to depart is anyone's guess. We wondered why the police were taking so long to do anything when they wander around on the platforms as routine. Eventually they strolled over and one jumped down to have a look. He soon jumped up again though and during what then proved to be a long wait, they made no attempt to conceal the body from the thousand of people around the platforms, or protect the scene. People continued to urinate, spit and throw rubbish on the tracks and the rats and crows began to sniff around excitedly. About 4.30pm, another office appeared and took 3 pictures with an instamatic camera and went off again. About this time, a huge crowd of men wearing green and white hats and waving sticks and shouting came marching through the station. They paused briefly by the body and then went on their way. We still have no idea what this was all about. A stretcher and white sheet appeared and 2 members of the public carried the floppy body onto it (obviously the body was too messy for the police to touch). One then grabbed the head by the hair and dropped it onto the sheet but it kept rolling off so they had to tie the sheet up. He was loaded onto a wooden cart and taken away leaving just the bloody mess on the tracks which was never cleaned up.
Eventually our train arrived and after some confusion we got on. We were really concerned at arriving in Agra so late as we try not to arrive anywhere in the dark. India is obviously even worse than the other countries we've been to for the hazards of arriving in the dark (obstacles, getting lost, desperate to find somewhere to sleep etc) and Agra was of particular concern as we had heard so many bad stories. As it turned out, the train was also an hour slower than published and it was gone 11pm when we finally arrived in Agra. The platforms as usual were a carpet of homeless people and the stench of urine and lack of washing made us feel even worse than usual after our long day. It always amazes us that there are so many babies around and the mothers manage to produce enough milk to feed them even though they are starving themselves - what a miracle the human body is! We've often wondered though how so many homeless people manage to conceive children - think about that for a minute! An Isreali guy was heading for the same place as us so we played the tuk-tuk drivers off against each other and got to our hotel for a mere 5r each but of course they tried to get us to book them the next day. Unfortunately our chosen hotel was locked up for the night which was the last thing we needed after our nightmare experiences and we desperately rattled the gates and shouted for someone to open up. Whoever it is that's playing this great practical joke on us obviously felt sorry for us in the end because someone opened up the gates and thankfully they had nice clean rooms for everyone. This is certainly one day we will never forget.
