Budget: 3640 Rupees/$70; Spent: 3340 Rupees/$64
We had an early start this morning. We woke up at 6am to complete our packing and walk to Mintoo's aunt and uncle's by 6:45am. Mintoo's mom and aunt had made us breakfast of parantha, which would be really hard to get tired of! When it was time to leave, we said goodbye to Mintoo’s aunt and uncle. It was sad to leave them. They have been excellent hosts and so friendly and welcoming. They will be missed.
We walked to the nearest larger road and Mintoo’s dad negotiated a price with an auto-rickshaw driver. To say the ride was a tight fit is an understatement. Fitting six people (five of us plus the driver) into a regular sized car can be tight enough, and the three-wheeler is quite a bit smaller. Add our backpacks into the mix and it made for some serious discomfort. Oh ya, and it was also freezing. There are no doors on three-wheelers, so the wind was howling through our hair as we swerved this way and that on our 45 minute journey to the train station. I really must buy pants.
We arrived at the train station and found our train no problem. The station itself is an older one, and in a state of disrepair. The train track was also littered with garbage and other, worse, things. The train was fine. It was dark and the “seats” were OK. I say “seats” because what we were sitting on doubles as seats (during the day) and a bed (at night). The back rest could fold upwards into another bed, with a third bunk even higher. It’s a neat design, and gives some versatility to the train. It's not really all that comfortable though.
The ride was about 3 hours long and we arrived in Agra around 11:30am. Before finding a taxi, we wanted to book train tickets onward to Jaipur and Mintoo and his parents their train back to Delhi. It took us a little bit to figure out where to go and how to do this, but we eventually booked trains we were OK with. Our train leaves Agra at 5am on December 22. Not exactly wonderful, but it'll have to do. Mintoo and his family leave tomorrow morning at 6am.
Getting a taxi to take us to our hotel was bothersome. We had heard about all the scams and they were in full operation. Several people, including three-wheeler drivers told us that the three-wheeler people were on strike. This of course is an absolute lie. I’m not sure how the profit sharing works between the three-wheeler drivers and the taxi drivers, but they have a sophisticated thing going on there. Of course, once we were in a taxi on our way to our hostel, we saw three-wheelers in operation. This is only to squeeze more money out of every tourist. At the very least we got our taxi ride at an acceptable price by walking away to the street as a taxi driver chased after us, yelling decreasing amounts at us.
While driving, the taxi driver was trying to sell us his services. He wanted to charge us 900 rupees ($18) for driving us around for the day. This may, at first, seem like a great deal, until we realized that he was already taking us to the Taj Mahal, which would probably require the rest of the day to see. He kept running off the names of all these places he would take us, but I knew straight away how big of a scam it was. Not on the best of days could you see that many places. And who wants to rush through the Taj Mahal?!
The ride itself took no more than 10 minutes, and was more than we had paid the three-wheeler in Delhi for a 45 minute ride. Sigh. Unfortunately, taxis cannot get close to the Taj Majal, due to pollution laws, so he dropped us off a bit of a walk away from our hotel, which is about 100m away from the east entrance to the Taj Mahal. We quickly found our hotel and it turned out to be pretty decent. No wifi though. Apparently its broken. I've promised myself that if it’s not up and running before we leave, I will ask for a discount. Hopefully I can pull out some charm/negotiating skills. I've been pretty bitter about getting ripped off, and I think it’s shining through. I need to remedy that.
It was here we learned that we buy tickets about 800 metres away from the entrance to the Taj Mahal. This actually wasn't too much of a pain in the ass because Mintoo and his parents couldn’t stay where we were staying and an available hotel was in the direction of the ticket counter. Our hotel arranged a car to take us to the hotel...free of charge! I suppose there's a first for everything.
Once Mintoo and his parents had a hotel room, we bought our tickets to the Taj Mahal, then took a horse-drawn-carriage-ride to a restaurant near the entrance. When we got off the carriage, we saw what I can only describe as a dog and a cow playing. The dog would run up to the cow, get it's head really low to the ground and it's butt up high, and then the cow would chase the dog a little distance before it started all over again. It was pretty hilarious to watch.
The meal was pretty good, though it's hard to enjoy restaurant food when all you have to compare it to are amazing home-cooked meals... After lunch, we were finally ready to tackle the Taj Mahal. It was already 3pm by this time, with the sun setting around 5pm, so we really didn’t have that much time.
Mintoo was nervous because they had bought a ticket for him as a local, which is less than 10% of the cost of the foreign ticket. Unfortunately, this plan did not work and he and his dad had to run down the street to buy a foreign ticket. Mintoo's mom, Patty, and I walked a short distance into the grounds while we waited for them. Eventually, Patty and I left Mintoo's mom to actually get closer. I was pretty anxious to get moving since the sun was setting. Hopefully I didn't seem like a jerk.
We wandered around the Taj Mahal until sunset. It is absolutely spectacular. Pictures cannot do it justice. The size of the building is immense. People look like ants at its base. The inside of the building is less impressive. As the story goes, the Taj Mahal was built by a king as a tomb for his wife so that the world never forget her. The tombs of the king and his wife are housed inside.
We tried to enter into the museum on the grounds of the Taj Mahal, but it had already closed. After many backwards glances, we left the Taj Mahal behind us. We walked back to our hotel and this is where we parted ways with Mintoo and his parents. I think his parents must have been relieved to be rid of us. They had taken care of us like their own children for an entire week. It must have been stressful and exhausting for them!
We dropped off some things in our room before heading to a cafe that is recommended in Lonely Planet. We got a little lost trying to find the place, but we eventually found it. We had some Indian dishes and they were quite yummy. We also took a look at their breakfast menu and that looked good too, so we decided to come for breakfast tomorrow morning.
It was here that we finally accessed the internet after more than a week! It's nice to not have the distraction of the internet, but it's also nice to be able to communicate with family back home. It was here, in the Yash Cafe, that we really ironed out our itinerary in India. From Agra, we will head to Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodpur, Udaipur, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Calcutta. It was a relief to get something down on paper because booking trains in India is tricky. We will need to book trains well in advance.
After our planning we called it a night. We have no specific plans for tomorrow, but we'll see where the day takes us!
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