Agra

Leave Delhi by train for Agra…a soft light over the Red Fort. Past shanty towns…a pink and blue sky.

Morning business…men shitting in the fields as the train moved away from the city. 

It reminds me of a computer programme building a city.

A slice of life getting up in the morning, washing…everyday things…flat fields of corn…straw and mud houses. 

Tai Mahal

Amazing! Hot…lovely gardens. The marble gleaming white…very bright…yet cool once inside.

But I liked the red sandstone mosque better.

Sit and look at the river while Charlie draws. 

It still all looks like the computer games! 

Corn, watermelons, and cucumbers.

The camera battery runs out in the most photographed place in the world!

See a green parrot! 🦜 

We walked back past stones in the garden. Trees with mauve flowers.

The museum is a quiet relief…beautiful old engravings of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz.

I actually preferred Agra Fort to the Taj Mahal…lots of different courtyards, sandstone and marble.

It was getting very hot!

We took a cycle rickshaw to the market…such an old man peddling away!

“No worry, no hurry, chicken curry”

He carried on following us everywhere … “Come into my helicopter” 

So we end up outside Zorba the Buddha restaurant and he’s still behind us! We sat in the shade waiting for it to open.

Lovely restaurant with stars on the blue and pink walls. It’s run by followers of Oshu with vases of nasturtiums and gypsofilia on the tables. 

Then Chris the ‘no towel man’ bounces in and sits with us and never stops talking. 

We eat veg pilau, Kashmiri rice, dal and saag aloo.

The cycle rickshaw man is still waiting for us outside…we give up trying to escape from him and let him ride us back to our hotel! 

Later that night there was a crescent moon, upside down in the sky.

We get up at 4.30–5 to see the sunrise over the Taj from the roof. The sky slowly lightens… soft grey, white. Monkeys jumping from rooftop to rooftop.The sun appears pale pink, then a thin orange circle.

We get a rickshaw to the station and negotiate a car to Fatehpur Sikri and Sikandra. There’s a cool breeze as we drive through the countryside. Images flash by!

A horse with an embroidered helmet.

Wheat being harvested with scythes.

Harem scarem at the level crossings. 

Horn Please!

Three wheeler Harley lookalike vans.

Stone carving places

Farmers and tractors and sacks of grain.

On the approach to Fatepur Sikri there was beautiful pink bougainvillea leading to entrance gate.

The history of Akbar the Great was very interesting. 

He had three wives with three different palaces, Hindu, Muslim and Christian. 

He formulated an elite eclectic religious movement called Dīn-i Ilāhī …Divine Faith in Persian. His attempt to blend faiths but it didn’t catch on!

Legend says Akbar watched human chess here, courtiers as pieces, the game played out in the open air.

A Puja ceremony with scarves, petals, incense and sweets. 

Beautiful mother of pearl dark interior.

On to Sikandra through more small towns and villages, saris blowing in the breeze …wonderful bright colours.

Take a shortcut alongside a river with dragonflies and a cow submerged. Lots of brightly decorated lorries. 

At Sikandra there were lovely entrance gates to large open park with palm trees rustling in the breeze.

Go down a dark entrance to Akbar the Great’s tomb heavily painted then down a long dark corridor to the candlelight tomb. 

A guy sings a song and asks for money then shows us the perfect symmetry of the line of the tomb to the gate entrance. 

Back to Agra. Small towns along the way. Driver takes us to an emporium so he gets an 50 rupee tip. The first of many! We look at jewellery,carpets, and textiles and a demonstration of carpet weaving. We get a free Pepsi. Big deal.

Watch sunset over Taj from the roof. We go to Joney’s Place for tea, a tiny shack with pink chairs and blue plastic walls.  Charlie wondered where the kitchen was and it turned out to be outside the window! 

The guest book dates back to 1978. We have potato kofta with sour cream sauce and fried nuts in a bowl. And then…drum roll … Banana lassi. The waiter immediately brings out the banana lassi guest book, famous in Lonely Planet… travellers scribbling their notes, a little ritual in its own right! 

The next morning watch all the children going to school immaculately spic and span in contrast to the night before when they were running around the streets!

Tidy up the bits and pieces on my chair! – Funny how in a small environment you create tasks. Also I noticed  how they keep sweeping the pavement not really connected – but the idea of simple routines.

As well I had strange recollections also of being in hospital i.e. living in a small space/routine etc lots of subconscious thoughts keep getting dredged up already of travelling…maybe in Zimbabwe because of the heat or Bermuda?

I was thinking about the guide talking about Akbar’s fusion of religions yesterday and the Hindu acceptance of other religions? We overhear a heavy conversation in Joney’s. A very young back packer arguing with another …one saying live for today the other a Christian saying live for the afterlife – but needing sets of rules to live by. 

Suddenly she says “ Should I start my own religion” Just like Akbar the Great! 

It made me think about the differences between young and old travellers! 

We talked about how we feel coming to India later in our lives and probably India hasn’t changed that much since the sixties but we might get more out of it now then before?

We took a walk in the park and had a beer on the roof at hotel Host and chat to lad from Afghanistan. The beer make me feel very sleepy! 

Go to back to Joney’s again and meet couple on the way back from going around the world. They said Bali was worse than India for tourist towns.

I had a masala omelette that gave me a bad stomach for the rest of the trip!