Agro in Agra

On Monday morning Paula and I said our goodbyes to each other because we intended to visit different parts of India. I cannot explain how strange it is to walk into a train station on your own and have several hundred Indians stop what they're doing and stare at you. Hundreds of eyes followed me as I walked with my big backpacks trying to find the board that tells you what platform your train is on, they stared while I got a cup of tea and continued to look when I sat down. You know when you catch someone looking at you and they hurriedly look away? It isn't like that here, they carry on looking right at you and if you make the mistake of making eye contact this can be perceived as a come-on so you have to be careful. This is what it must feel like to be famous! Or what it's like to be a grotesque alien, I'm undecided.

I've been a little ill for the past few days - let's call it traveller's stomach if you know what I mean. Because of this I've been dreading this journey because the amenities on the train consist of a hole in the train floor...this provides a great view of the train tracks but not so great comfort when you're feeling ill! Thank Buddha (and Immodium) I got through it ok! I happened to be seated next to the only other non-Indians on the train and they were a couple from England. We got chatting and when we reached Agra we shared a rickshaw and they ended up staying in the hotel I had booked for myself in advance online. Paula had put me in contact with a friendly Indian man to show me around Agra including the Taj Mahal and I arranged to meet him outside my guesthouse at 5.45am the next day so I could see the Taj at sunrise and avoid the crowds. In the dark I waited outside for ages but he never turned up and he didn't answer his phone. I was annoyed as the Taj Mahal had been the one thing I didn't want to experience by myself but I had to go because I was going to miss the sunrise and was leaving Agra later that day. I eventually found my way to the ticket office and then to the entry gate and the security guards went through my bags and said that I couldn't take in my little toy monkey that had somehow found its way into my handbag. They were smirking as they told me that toys weren't allowed and asked why my guide hadn't told me this. I explained that I didn't have a guide and they 'helpfully' said I could put it in a locker which turned out to be 2km away! Luckily a female guard took pity on me and said she'd put it in her pocket (it was a birthday present and was made by villagers in the Himalayas, I didn't want to chuck it away). Once I was in the gate I decided to get an audio guide because everyone else seemed to have a human guide but I couldn't afford one by myself. The Taj Mahal seemed like a beautiful mirage amidst the chaos of India; against the white morning sky it seemed as if it was floating. The gardens and lakes surrounding it had been manicured to perfection and kept very clean - the antithesis of the grimy cities I'd been in. I could see the silhouettes of hundreds of monkeys on the walls of the complex. My audio guide was broken and the man at the desk wasn't interested in replacing it, the ferocious morning sun was beating down on me and male Indian tourists were taking photos of me despite me asking them not to. Some of them were photographing my backside and I shouted 'no photo!!' but they found this hilarious and continued whilst I ran away. This wasn't the Taj experience I was hoping for.

Something about monkeys on a wall...

Within ten minutes of taking this photo the whole place was filled with thousands of people.

The Taj at sunrise.

I had 9 hours to kill before my train and I was feeling quite miserable when I got back to the guesthouse so I was very happy when I bumped into the English couple from the train and we all went for breakfast. Afterwards we found a rooftop pool to go to and for hours we swam around chatting and had such a lovely day in the blistering heat!

Yet again my love/hate relationship with this country prevails! 

I had such ridiculous sunburn lines on my arms when I got to the station which provided further reason for people to stare; I was feeling like the only white (red) person on earth. The train notice boards were broken and there were no station staff so I looked for a safe person to talk to and approached a man in a business suit, "This in India...", he offered as an explanation. I hear this an awful lot.

I briefly got talking to two very sweet Japanese girls at the station and they giggled in unison at everything I said. I got on the train at 9pm and had to stay awake until it arrived at 3pm as I didn't know when it was going to arrive. I had been up since 5am and was exhausted when I reached Jaipur; I got a rickshaw to my hotel but the building was completely dark! I had emailed ahead to warn them I might be late and thankfully, after knocking on the window, a young boy came out and without a word he showed me to my room and left.