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Agra - AKA Taj Mahal
So the bus journey to Agra was marginally better than the last, with a sincere lack of goats and emergency toilet stops this time. We got a rickshaw straight to our Hotel Taj Plaza on arrival in Agra, about 1km from the Taj Mahal - we went straight up to the rooftop to get a better view. That evening we succumbed to the temptation of Western food and ordered a chicken Dominos pizza direct to the hotel, much to the amusement of the reception staff and watched a film on TV with a cold beer - we think we deserved a break from curry!
The next morning we got up early (5am) to see sunrise at the Taj Mahal. As they are trying to keep the whole 1km area around the Taj pollution free you can either walk down or jump on a battery powered vehicle, we chose the latter! After having to wait in separate male and female queues, the female being much longer, and Trevor being asked to take Patch and Brian out of his bag to be stored in a random shop (which he didn't do and subsequently smuggled in) we finally got into the grounds as the sun came up. Immediately approached by a guide we haggled the price down and started the tour, eager to actually know a bit about the background and history of the Taj Mahal. We posed for lots of embarrasing obligatory photos at various points, taking every opportunity when the mist cleared. The Taj itself is very impressive, although Sophie thought it was going to be twice as big as it was. The amount of work and level of detail in the building, in a time when everything was done by hand made today's builders look like amateurs! As the guide started to get a bit creepy, asking Sophie what Caste she was in and whether we were married, we continued around on our own for a while longer.
After the Taj we had to face the train station and endure Indian beaurocacy at its finest, which meant 'queuing' in about 3 different queues, having to run off to get photocopies of our passports and shouting at people to stop pushing in front of us, all to try and get 'Taktal Quota' train tickets to Varanasi for the following day (which we finally succeeded in doing at an extortionate price). That day we had a cheese and tomato toastie for lunch from 'Joney's Place', a popular backpacker hangout, and more curry in the evening :( Sophie bought mouldy old shower gel from an old man in a shop that evening simply because she felt sorry for him.
The next day we had a nightmare at an internet cafe, when the photos on our camera got infected with a computer virus - Trevor spent 4 hours in a big stress trying to sort it out, and then tried to educate the guy in the internet cafe on how to improve his internet security, which subsequently fell on deaf ears. That evening we got a crazy taxi through manic traffic to nearby Tundla Train Station (lesson learnt - do not watch out of the front of the taxi, you'll only scare yourself) to catch our Varanasi train. Unfortunately when we got there we found out our train was 5 HOURS delayed - what?!!! Oh well we thought - we'll go and sit in the nice waiting room reserved for people with more expensive tickets. Unfortunately this was rat infested and run by some crazy woman that kept randomly demanding money off us which we refused to give to her. Another guy managed to pay her in sweets which seemed to keep her happy for a while. In the end our train arrived 10 hours late (South Eastern Rail eat your heart out) in Varanasi - the city of public cremations and the famous River Ganges.
Wonder of the World No. 1 - Done!
- comments
Julian Your blogs are great you two, I do like em. You can pay me in sweets when you get back for the positive comments : | You shoulda caught a rat n see if waiting room lady would have accepted lol.