Days 131, 132, and 133: Too much Taj

Day 130 cntd
After publishing my previous post I heard that a couple from Taiwan from the hotel were going to visit Varanasi's famous Vishwanath (Golden) Temple. "This is not possible",  I say, "only Hindus are allowed in". The answer from the hotel owner was "for 100 rupees, anyone's a Hindu'". Well, 100 rupees and a red dot on my forehead later and I am inside. The temple gets its name from the 800 kg of gold covering its tower and dome, but I was more interested in the Shiva lingam inside (i.e.Shiva's penis). Copying the throngs of pilgrims, I left an offering of fresh flowers and gave Shiva's member a rub before I was pushed and jostled out of the way.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading the Hindustan Times, with a particular focus on the amusing lonely hearts section. It was interesting that (1) it was entitled 'brides and husbands wanted' (no waiting around here), (2) it was organised by caste and (3) everyone was keen that their other half be from a 'status family'.

Two of the friends I had made at the hotel accompanied me to the station. One of them can speak Hindu (his father is Indian though he lives in Australia) and he made my life so much simpler by taking me to my train platform, helping me find all the shops to buy everything I need and telling the train supervisor to watch over me. 

Now as I mentioned in an earlier post, India's train system has eight classes and I had had the bad luck only to be able to get a ticket in the fourth of these classes (Sleeper Class). On paper the only difference between this and the upper classes is that it lacks air conditioning, but a few minutes into the journey I realised that there is much more amiss. The carriages were filthy, the people were crammed in about 8 to a berth (there is only supposed to be 1 person per berth) and there was a man lying by the toilet with blood pouring out of his mouth and feet!. Everyone in the carriage just sat and stared at the Westerners. Thankfully though my unit of 6 beds contained two girls from Canada, one girl from Australia and one guy from Korea so not all the locals' eyes were focused on just one of us.

The train was unbearably hot, but I was afraid of breaking the modesty rules of Indian dress and so resisted the urge to strip down to my underwear. Instead, I just steamed on my bed and realised that I had no hope of sleep tonight. To pass the time, I concentrated my efforts on fighting off the rat-sized bugs that had decided to attack me. The Canadian girl below me did not thank me for raining down the insect carcasses on her head.

Miraculously I managed to fall asleep at one point, but this pleasure was short-lived because about thirty minutes later I awoke to hear the Australian girl below screaming her head off. It turned out she had awoken to find an Indian transvestite (yes the trains are stuffed with men in saris for some reason) going through her bag. We chased the transvestite away, but were unable to fall asleep after that. It didn't help either that many of the people who were crammed 8 to a birth kept on coming and sitting on our births when we weren't looking.

Day 131
It was therefore in a rather exhausted state that I arrived in Agra the following morning. Agra of course is the hometown of the Taj Mahal - India's number one tourist destination! There was no time for rest though as the temperatures around lunchtime would be unbearable. It was with superhuman strength that I had a quick shower and headed town to the Taj. Miraculously, I arrived there so early that I was one of the only tourists about and so managed to get some pretty cool pictures (including a rather bad copy of Princess Diana's famous pre-divorce picture).

The Taj was built my the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial/burial place for his favourite wife who died in 1631. The cynic in me always imagines that such famous places are much less impressive in person than might be expected. However, just as with Machu Picchu, in person I found this monument to be absolutely worth the hype. It was so so beautiful and I could barely take my eyes off it! I must have spent about 2 hours just walking around it.

 (me doing my Princess Diana shot)

 (the original)

Afterwards I had breakfast at my hotel and below is the view I had from my bowl of cornflakes at the roof restaurant. 

After a much-desired afternoon nap I checked out some of Agra's other landmarks. I began with Agra Fort, which was built by the amazing emperor Akbar (more of whom below). Apart from hosting some stunning examples of Mughal architecture, it is also famous as the place where Shah Jahan (the builder of the Taj Mahal) was imprisoned until his death by his evil son Aurangzeb.. Shah Jahan could only gaze at his beloved wife's mausoleum through the gaps in the walls.   

 (a heart-aching view)

The Fort is also famous for containing the Shish Mahal (or mirror palace); a network of bathing/harem rooms where the walls are covered in tiny reflective stones. This is supposedly one of the most beautiful and opulent examples of Mughal architecture, but is closed to visitors. But luckily I bumped into a group of Australians who had bribed their way in and were perfectly willing for me to freeride with them. We were guided around by candlelight and it was so beautiful to see the little flames reflected thousands of times around the room. 

 

Next I headed to the 'Baby Taj', which was built for a Persian nobleman and actually pre-dates the Taj itself. After this I went to the opposite bank of the river to the Taj Mahal to gaze at it once again, but this time from a different perspective. 

Needless to say that by the end of the day I had had enough Taj-watching to last a lifetime. I contented myself therefore with playing with one of the million chipmunks that litter India like squirrels do back home and with some much-need handwashing of my clothes.

 (my impromptu washing line)

Day 132
Over the last five months I have had my hair cut in Peru, Australia and Thailand. Now it was time to try India. Ricky (below) did rather a good job and took particular pride in the back of my head which he sculpted into a traditional 'Bollywood' shape using a cut-throat razor.

 

Now I have been very lax at keeping you informed of my reading. In the last few weeks I have got through Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar"and, most importantly for today's purposes, Salman Rushdie's "The Enchantress of Florence". Rushdie's book is set in the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar during the period when it was located in Fatehpur Sikri and via this I feel like I know the city inside out. As Sikri is only an hour away from Akra, I had to pay a visit. 

As you might imagine I was rather overly enthused that morning and was really looking forward to seeing the rooms where the various intrigues of the book took place. However, my mood swiftly changed as a man walking past the taxi took one look at me, turned and spat right into my face. I was too shocked to respond and by the time I collected myself to beat the man up we had driven away. Then my taxi driver perpetrates a mini-scam by dropping me a good distance from the city itself, forcing me to get a camel ride in from one of this friends. Needless to say I refused to get the camel and took the local bus there instead. All the way a group of tourist touts surrounded me, really aggressively trying to get me to buy their crap or hire them as guides. The temperature was in the high thirties and the air was as moist as soup. I was one event away from a nervous breakdown.

Then the event happened. Arriving in Sikri I did eventually hire a guide (I wanted to make sure someone knowledgeable could take me to all the places I wanted to visit). However, it swiftly turned out that this guide couldn't speak English, but was rather just repeating a list of things he had memorised. In addition, he lied to me telling me that certain rooms were closed (when I knew they were open) and he walked so fast that I barely had time to look around. I can't remember what was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I flipped and started to get very shouty and angry. However just as I was getting ready to curse India and book a return flight back to London the skies broke and the monsoon thumped itself down. It was as if the water washed away all the annoyances of the day and gave me some perspective. Laughing I apologised to the guide and he apologised to me and we carried on with the tour.

Fatehpur Sikri is magnificent. Akbar had this city custom-built as the capital for his massive empire and it was built on a truly grand scale befitting the world's greatest monarch. Every room was simply dripping in opulence and significance. Of particular note was the manner in which the architects blended Muslim, Hindu and Christian imagery in a physical manifestation of Akbar's enlightened practice of religious tolerance. Indeed, Akbar went so far as to have three official queens (one Muslim, one Hindu and one Christian) to complement his hundreds of harem girls.

(look at the honey bees on the roof of this arch)

 (slightly obscured by the rainwater, but that chair is the centre of a massive board game. Akbar used slave girls for pieces)

 (The Highlight - The Diwan-i-Khas. Akbar would sit in the centre of the stone tree and his scholars and ministers would stand in the opposing four corners. Much of Rushdie's book occurs in this room)

 The complex also boasts the tomb of Akbar's favourite Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti. Childless women visit this tomb and tie a thread to its walls in the hope that they will be given a son. 

 

Sikri however was only a short-lived capital for Akbar's empire as it was abandoned a mere 14 years after construction due to water shortages.

In a much better mood than before I returned to Agra and got myself a 2 hour (AIR CONDITIONED) train to Delhi, arriving late in the evening.

Day 133

I love the hotel I am staying in in Delhi. For not too much money I have two fans which I train straight on my body each night, a massive (though simple) bathroom and, wait for it, a flatscreen TV with the BBC Entertainment Channel. If watching my favourite UK sitcoms and chatshows wasn't enough to make me homesick, the sight of Marks and Spencer pushed me over the edge. As I gazed on the unfashionable, but sensible wares inside I in all seriousness found a tear forming in one of my eyes. Even though I have had the time of my life over the last few months, I really really miss home now and little things like this remind me that I am still two weeks away. 

I am staying on the edge of New Delhi (right by the train station) and thought I'd take my first day to become accustomed to the city. Thus ensued an epic 10 kilometer wander through its main avenues. The British built New Delhi to be the centre of their Empire, but in an echo of Akbar's Sikri, this was to be short-lived. A mere 16 years after the city was constructed, India gained independence! Say what you will about Britain's moral, political and economic legacy in India, but its architectural legacy is undoubtedly amazing! Maybe I am a Western snob, but I did marvel at the beauty of the wide tree-lined arrow-straight avenues and the grand Roman columns holding up grand Roman-temple-like mansions. I began with Connaught Place, then steadily worked my way down to the Rajpath - a long artery street hosting the centre of India's government.

 (the official Indian government cars are amusingly dated)

 (The old Viceroy's palace, now the president's palace. At the height of the British Raj, this building hosted an unimaginable number of servants. There were 418 gardeners alone, of which 50 were employed merely to chase away birds. Once again, the parallels with Akbar's opulence abound)

I also found time to check out India's National Museum. While the museum was in desperate night of an update (the exhibits couldn't have been touched since the 1970s) the information given was fascinating. I particularly liked the examples of Indian artistic reactions to the arrival of Westerners during the Mughal empire. It was interesting to see Jesuit missionaries for instance depicted in the traditional style of Mughal portraiture. The only downside was that the museum hadn't invested in air conditioning and I found I couldn't maintain my attention after two hours.

That evening I dragged myself away from the television in my room to be social and meet some of the other people at the hostel. Needless to say, once we all returned to bed I flicked the TV back on and watched several hours of crap.