Again, I owe the family I’m sharing a berth with. Somehow I managed to sleep through the 3 alarms on my watch, and even though it wasn’t his stop, Rashan was awake and woke me because he knew I needed to get off the train. I have absolutely no idea what would have happened if that incredible family hadn’t been there to look up my PNR number, talk to the conductor for me, give me a berth and get me off the train. Who knows where I would have ended up or what I would have had to pay.
Remarkably, the train has finished the 12-hour trip almost exactly on time. This really is no small feat—only one other train out of the 15 I’ve ridden has accomplished the same thing. The good news is that my 5am arrival means I have plenty of time to buy a ticket and board the 6am train to Agra rather than have to search for a bus that might not be leaving until 8 or 9 and take almost six hours. My ticket is an “open ticket”, which means that I’m not assigned a specific seat until I get on the train and see what’s empty. They tell me just to get on whichever coach I want to ride on and plunk down in an empty seat. Works for me, especially for Rs72.
Another American girl, Kara, sees me waiting to board the train and asks me for help finding carriage D1. I’ve never heard of D1 before and tell her that I have an open ticket myself, so we decide to just board the train’s chair coach and hope for the best. In an interesting coincidence, Kara announces she’s a sixth-grade teacher in an international school in Dubai. She even thought at one point about teaching in Singapore. Obviously, we have plenty to talk about over the five-hour trip to Agra.
Kara shares an awesome idea with me when we’re about an hour from Agra: in order to see as much as possible as quickly as possible, let’s hire a driver to take us around in a pre-paid taxi which, at the end of the day, will leave her at the train station and me at my hotel. Normally, this idea wouldn’t be something I’m interested in because these services tend to be a bit of a rip-off. However, the train is already running about an hour late and speed is becoming more important to me than having a few hundred more rupiya in my pocket. After I book a train ticket to Delhi for tomorrow, we exit the station and see what kind of cost we’re talking here.
The first guy that approaches us shows us his official taxi license and a list of prices. At first he says it will be Rs1250 all-inclusive for 6 hours, but he says of all the things we want to see we’ll only have time to go to Fatehpur Sikri, a mosque and palace 40km outside of town, and the Taj Mahal. When we try to bargain with him, since seeing two things then going to the train station hardly seems worth that much, he says he could lower it to Rs1000 but we’d have to pay about Rs150 in tolls and parking fees. Saving Rs100 doesn’t seem like much of a compromise, and unfortunately for him the late train has made me extremely frustrated and short-tempered. I’m getting angry because I don’t want to waste time arguing over what seems to be a ridiculous price and Kara and I eventually decide that even if we could get a price we liked, it would probably be pretty uncomfortable to ride with them in the car.
So we go to the actual taxi stand booth, rather than talk with a driver directly. I promise Kara that I’m going to be better about keeping my temper and let her do most of the talking. I feel like I can’t hold my tongue, though, because I’m so anxious to get on the road! When we tell dispatcher which three places we want to go to, he says it will be Rs950 and we’ll have to pay the tolls and fees, but that they will only be about Rs100. Well, it’s not what we were hoping for, but it’s still only about Rs500 for each of us and it’ll be the most practical way to get around. When you’re paying for speed and efficiency, I guess you should expect to pay a premium.
But we have a car and a driver, who promises us he is “very fast, getting you to all the sights in big hurry! You are like my guests. I will no be happy if my guests not see all to see in Agra.” We toss my bag in the back and start driving. I have to say, the Taj Mahal may not be the most impressive thing in Agra. That honor may go to the traffic; it’s infuriating, maddening and exasperating, but also striking for its sprawling size! In all of India I haven’t seen so many cars squished into such narrow lanes and taking so damn long to get where they want to go. It takes just over an hour to go only 40km and the roads for the most part are sprinkled with potholes that we have to slow down for or swerve to avoid. I think we’ve also managed to hire the only timid, law-abiding, cautious driver in all of India. Today of all days….
The mosque, Jama Masjid, is no less impressive, although it’s swarming with touts. There are guides offering their services, women selling trinkets, men selling postcards, children asking for rupees and pens and taxi drivers trying to take us back into town. If you can shake them, which is no easy task, you’re free to appreciate the magnitude of the mosque. There are a couple dozen tombs in the courtyard, as well as a white marble inner sanctum and three large gates that worshipers would enter. I cross the courtyard to get closer to one of the gates and notice about ten giant black mounds attached to the ceiling. At first I think they’re extremely large bird nests, which I’ve seen under the awnings of other temples, but then I hear this odd noise and notice that the mounds seem to be moving. No. No, there’s no way. Those can’t be….bee hives! But yes, indeed, those are gigantic, scary, honey- and weapon-making factories. I HATE bees and I’m out of here. To me, honey is like a hot dog: I love to eat it but I have no desire to be around when it's being made.
But we do get through and arrive at our second stop, Itimad-ud-daulah, a.k.a. the Baby Taj, around 4:25. Kara is slightly worried she’s not going to make it to the big Taj before they stop selling tickets at 5, so she just takes a few quick pics and gets back in the car. I tell her to just leave me at Baby Taj so I can look at it longer and come back to pick me up in a little over an hour. My plan is to see Big Taj at sunrise, anyway, so I’m content to stay on the opposite side of the Yamuna River for a little while. Baby Taj is definitely miniature compared to the real thing, but the inlay work and painting is no less impressive and it turns out it’s the first Mughal structure built entirely out of marble AND it was built by a woman! Not bad for the early 1600s.
Before I can get into the hotel, though, I'm distracted by a large group of young men and boys playing large bass drums and cymbals in the street. It looks like some absurd marching band that lost its conductor but is trying to rehearse anyway; everyone looks around hoping someone will say when to start, and about 30 seconds after each time they begin they lose the beat and descend into chaotic booms and clangs. They play the drums a way I've never seen before: one boy holds it while another stands behind him and hits it with two long, thin sticks. There's obviously a competition for who will get to play next and the younger boys can't compete and so content themselves with the small hand cymbals. I can't blame them for fighting for a turn, though, and honestly I'm incredibly tempted to ask if I can try. The rhythm is fairly simple and it would be a lot of fun for me to step in and probably surprise them with being able to play as well as them. I'm tired, though, and I want to get online before bed, so I pass on the opportunity.
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