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| Entering the Red Fort |
I suppose you could say that if you're not on an organised tour, you're on an unorganized or even perhaps in my case a disorganized tour. Some who know me well would understand that concept! But really this is the challenge of independent travel in a place like this, the challenge is to go headlong into the unpredictable chaos and see if you can get through it....which is a roundabout way of saying I missed the train! What happened was that when I booked my train from Agra to Varanasi 48 hrs before, the train was full but they have a waiting list system - which I knew something of, having discussed it once with some guys who said they got on no problem and they were something like 34th and 35th on the list. So I asked where would I be in the queue and the woman in the Station Ticket Office said 7th so I said "No problem" , bought the WL Ticket and thought no more about it, duly turning up at 7pm Sunday to be allocated my seat - but the guy said I would have to see the conductor on the train when it arrived at 9.30, which I did and there were no seats! What an absolute bloody pain! So then I went and got a refund and made some more desperate inquiries and was told to try again at 8am. So by now its 10.30 and I have to find a hotel, and you feel totally vulnerable to the scammers and touts but by then I was really cranky so I used all my tricks on the pack waiting outside to eventually get a tuktuk guy to take me to about 4 different places, for 50 Rupees - they started off wanting 150 - before I finally got a room.
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| TukTuks etc outside Station |
And what a room! A scruffy pink door with green and brown painted squares , ghastly dirty mauve curtains with a damp frill, green walls with orange trim, grayish stained and frayed sheets, stinky bathroom - and they wanted 2490 rupees for it. The guy at the front desk made a huge display of getting out his calculator and offering me a special discount and brought it down to 2100 rupees and I said no way, he said "OK How much ?" I said 1500 - well it had aircon and TV, and I was exhausted - he said sorry no possible so I walked out.to the street again, its nearly midnight in some backstreet of Agra and I ask the TukTuk guy to take me somewhere else but then the Front Desk guy appears saying OK OK 1800, last price, I shake my head, the Tuk Tuk guy starts his motor and the Front Desk guy says OK 1500 and I'm in! And theres one more thing - I cant bring myself to have a shower in his stinky room but turn off the aircon as its cool by now and turn off the light to at last go to sleep on the dubious bed and hear a loud irritating regular bang which turns out to be water dripping from the Air-con on the floor above dropping onto the air-con outside my window. But the window cant be opened - so I got my nail file and undid a couple of screws holding it shut and took one of the dodgy brown vinyl cushions off the dilapidated settee, stuffed it through the tiny window and sat it on top of the air-con outside where the drops were hitting - no more noise! And in the morning I pulled it back in and rescrewed the window. A small victory to cheer me up.
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| Shady Grass you can lie down on at the Red Fort |
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| The Taj and a Kite from the Red Fort |
I was starting to feel a bit desperate fearing I was going to be trapped in Agra, which after having seen the Taj and the Red Fort - which was worth it for more Taj views and a nice bit of grass to lie on - has not much else going for it, being so polluted and crowded and dusty - but I headed back to the station, was first in the queue because I got there so early, so started to feel better - maybe my luck had changed - and then at a minute to eight realized I hadn't picked up a little form you have to fill in so I went and got one and went to the back of the bloody queue. And I hadnt had breakfast. I was starting to curse everything.
Anyhow, when I finally got back to the window again and after a lot of frowning and wrinkling his face, which made me think I was doomed to stay in Agra for ever, the guy found me a non AC Sleeper berth on a train leaving at 1130 that night, which was a huge relief but now I had a day to kill in Agra. I put my luggage into Storage - at the "Cloakroom" on the station - and paid the government tourist guy 1000 rupees to take me in a flash aircon Taxi to Fatephur Sikri for the day, with a stop off at a restaurant on the way for breakfast. I just paid it all and couldnt be bothered trying to get a better price and all that - it was only 25 bucks! Just get me out of here! Fatephur Sikri, 40km away is another palace/Fort/Temple set up that had been on my original "to do " list but I had cancelled it after seeing a few other forts.
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| Fatephur Sikri - Temple area |
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| Restful gardens at F-S - reminded me of Alhambra |
The most interesting thing that happened was that while having my "breakfast" - it was nearly 12 by now - the "Guide" came and started chatting, the usual questions - are you married, how many children what is your job....so I asked him about his and he told me he had a wife and two children. He said what a nice man I was and he patted my hand a few times and then told me he also had a boyfriend! So I inquired a little further and he confided in me, as I was a foreigner and going away, that he had a long term gay lover but it had always to be secret and hidden from everyone else. I explained as clearly as I could that in my country if you were "like that" he didnt use the word gay or anything - you could be open about it and not get married to a woman to try to hide it. And I wasnt travelling without a wife because I was gay! But thanks...
So I spent the day impatiently killing time, telling anyone who approached to push off and leave me alone, and eventually got back to the station about 9pm, got my bags and at last when the train arrived I crept into my little slot - the middle bunk this time - and try as I might and despite my exhaustion slept hardly at all as the slow multistops train ground its way to Varanasi over the next 14 hours.
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