Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After leaving Agra the next logical place to visit for any traveller is a place called Fatehpur Sikri, home a large walled city built in 1569 and became the short lived capital of the Mughal Empire (abandoned because of lack of water - bad planning guys). It is yet another fort-like dusty stronghold which consisted of large grass courtyards and impressive building with their vast ceilings and intricately designed brickwork. Yet again we were one of only a handful of white tourists visiting the site, the rest were Indians on vay-cay.
I just would like to point out at this point that we, as tourists, need to pay 10x more than Indians to have the pleasure of walking around this this water-quenched sun trap. Never have I seen such a blatant form of racism whilst travelling. Sure, I've seen locals be favoured over me in a bakery queue or two but paying 1000 rupees to visit an attraction over an Indians 20 is taking it a bit far. Also, it is literally just a concept as the colour of your skin. As far as I know, no proof of nationality is required for Indians to show they deserve this huge discount. For all they know I could have been born and raised in India but just had white skin. But no, that's not how it works. Imagine if we, as English, start charge non-English people to attend our famously free museums and art galleries. There would be utter chaos and uproar!! At least the queues could be a bit smaller and the coffee a little less expensive
So back to Fatehpur Sikri...so as far as the 'capital of the Empire' is concerned, I honestly thought it was quite unimpressive. It just felt...well...empty. If they filled the vast empty buildings a bit with pictures, explanations, colour of any sort, then it would be easier to appreciate the importance and history of such a place. It just felt like an abandoned stone ghost town. The most impressive part was the incredible mosque at the back of the main buildings. Kicking off our shoes, as we were asked to do, we entered through the Buland Darwaza gate. The mosque itself consisted of a huge courtyard, the biggest one yet (making it one of the biggest in the country) with a covered pathway along the border heading towards the centre, where a small, bright white tomb stands holding the remains of Salim Chishti. Opposite the entrance of the tomb is the Kings gateway, measuring 54ft high, a colossal building keeping its watchful gaze over the rest of the mosques inhabitants. It was spectacular but the experience was tainted by the young boy who followed us around the whole way giving us an unwanted guide. We asked him several times to leave but he pushed on with us anyway. Soon we had about 6 boys all trailing behind us, trying to get sneaky pictures of us without us noticing. It's funny how a bunch of young children can make you feel so threatened but we carried on regardless and simply denied them money when the time came to leave. Something I had to admit though - this boy was 9 years old and was chatting away to is in remarkable English and then in a blink of an eye turned to Cedric and explained everything again in French. I've got to hand it to them, they've definitely pulled out all the stops to scam tourists efficiently!
From there it was onto a relatively small attraction, off the beaten track called Abhaneri. This was an impressive a simple concept which originally acted as a bath but consisted of tumbling steps falling into one another in a zigzag fashion into a large (now slime green) water pit. It took us a whole 15 minutes to walk around it and take a few photos. Despite this, I was impressed! its secluded nature and the shear pointlessness and brilliance of it tickled me. That, and the fact that there weren't hundreds of Indian locals trying to scam you outbid every penny you owned. Onto Ranthambore!!
- comments