Taj Mahal And Complete Itinerary Change

I am sitting by the pool watching hundreds of Kites hovering effortlessly above Delhi, searching for prey. They are magnificent raptors and fill the entire Delhi sky. I also saw them hovering in Mumbai but they are ubiquitous here. They must be floating on thermals because they hover for hours and never flap their wings.

Yesterday (now 2 days ago) we went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. The Taj makes it onto most wonder-of-the-world lists, although it is not an official one of the Canonical 7.

Let's start with what was wonderful about the trip to Agra. The Taj is stunning. The stark white marble structure is breathtaking. Walking onto the grounds and from a rather dismal town of Agra and being confronted by this heavenly structure is quite an ethereal experience.

The trip to Agra was also very pleasant. I had booked an express train (Shatabdi Express) that left at 6:00 AM. The train was very comfortable. The breakfast they served was quite good, and we left and arrived on time.

Also nice was visiting the Baby Taj. This is also a mausoleum. It's not nearly as grand as the Taj but it also does not attract crowds the way the Taj does. I think there were about 4 people there with us - as opposed to thousands at the Taj Majal.

But not everything was smooth sailing. My research had yielded the following: 1. Go with the "government pre-paid" taxis and drivers by making the arrangements at the government office in Agra. 2. Since the only express train back to Delhi is at 8:30 PM, do your Agra sightseeing and then get on whatever train is leaving for Delhi when you are done (there are about 10 over the course of the day). 3. Do not bother staying in Agra as there is not much to see beyond the Taj.

And this is how it actually worked out: We were accosted by touts as soon as we were off the train in Agra - on the platform. One guy latched on to us and even though I said "no" 10 times, he followed us to the government office. I spoke to the government "official" who sold me the official ticket for the official day-tour and gave me the official paper to give to the official driver. He then pointed to the tout that had accosted us on the platform. This did not please me. Obviously the touts and the officials work together now.

We went to the tout's car and told him what we wanted to see. He was nice enough and agreed to start with the Taj Majal and then to go from there. From the beginning we felt some resistance to just doing things the way we wanted them done. He had an idea of an itinerary and while he would agree to what we wanted he did so begrudgingly. As the day progressed, our itineraries diverged. He became quite adamant that we visit some "government shops" which we would love. We had told him no a number of times. Once we made it clear that we had no interest he started begging us to go because he gets paid by the shops and that just a few minutes of our time would make a huge difference in his life. In the end we did agree to go to one of the shops both because he was getting something out of it and to alleviate some of the tension that had built up in our taxi.

After visiting the Taj, the Fort, and Baby Taj, we were ready to get out of Agra. While the sites were nice, the constant harassment by touts made everything leading up to each site unpleasant. We were constantly saying no. And they do not accept no. Apparently they have learned that "no" really means "maybe" and they milk that maybe-disguised-as-a-no as far as humanly possible.

There is much more that I could write about the day and maybe I will later - but we are leaving soon for Varanasi and I have to wrap up this post so we can get going. I'm going to skip to the trip back.

We got to the train station and bought a ticket that could be used on any train (and upgraded according to availability and bribability). Unfortunately every train was significantly delayed - up to a few hours for some of them. We made our way to platform 2 where a 3:30 train was leaving at 4:40. Platform 2 must not see a lot of caucasians because we both became aware that we were being stared at. Eventually we moved to another part of the platform where there were fewer people. While we waited we were approached by shoe-shine people. Once again the word "no" was quite ineffective as one guy went so far as to start applying some cream even after my 5th adamant "no".

Once on the train we settled into a berth. When the conductor came by he told us it would be another 320 for us to sit in the 2AC class. I paid him and he wrote out a complicated receipt. As he was wrapping up, the guy that we had been chatting with across from us, told the conductor that he had made a mistake and had undercharged us. They went through the complicated fare-book together and came up with a way to demand another 200 Rupees from us. I thanked our neighbor profusely for his dedication to setting things in India straight. Must be the fist time in history that anyone ever paid the official upgrade rate on a train.

Upon arrival in Delhi we had another unpleasant tout experience - no time to tell - but it was enough to convince us to change the rest of our itinerary in India. We will now fly to Varanasi. Then we will train only to Jaipur. We are cutting out Jaisalmer altogether. Since air service is going to soon be ubiquitous in this country there is no reason to endure the long rides that are so vulnerable to delay, touting, and other unpleasantness.

The only problem with our sudden late-date change is that this is really really high season and hotels are astonishingly scarce. We have manged reservations but they're not ideal.

I'm out of time. Email us and let us know what is happening with you all. Will write when we have more time.

xoxo