28 December - Bharatpur and Agra

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Bharatpur

Day 21 of Rajasthan Tour

Nothing here, there is a bird sanctuary with about 4 birds in it (apparently they did not come back this year yet as its too cold). We enjoyed ourselves for an hour or two bicycling around the park, but I would not recommend staying here overnight, would not even bother stopping. Hotel was dirty and horrendously over priced - Hotel Pratap Palace - its no palace.

Agra

Day 22 of Rajasthan Tour

Well this is the last night of our tour and we have to say goodbye to our driver, we will be on our own tomorrow - scary thought. We spent both our days here sightseeing and eating at Pizza Hut and Costa Coffee. I try to never touch Pizza Hut in New Zealand, their topping has degraded to a paste with lumps in it. But my god the Pizza Hut in India is divine, its like Pizza Hut used to be 20 years ago in NZ. So we had dinner and lunch the next day there, including eating their ice cream and chocolate cake. There are very few treats like this in India, but when you find one, you tend to move into the place.

We liked Agra, walking down the street at dusk a typical couple of minutes:

Scanning the road for a safe place to put your next foot step.
Stalls alight with flame fueled woks cooking Indian delights.
Children swinging their silver tins, carrying home their hot treats purchased from the woks.
Men chatting outside their shops, stopping only to yell “Marm shawls, pashminas, yes good price, come into my shop….just look marm.
Mothers with babies calling for our attention with the hand-to-mouth gesture.
Dogs sniffing paper and plastic waste on the footpath in search of food.
Children running up beside us with bracelets and souvenirs handing off their fingers….only 200 for 6….okay then 150…..good price marm…..good price…...ok ok ok then 100.
Cows and buffalos wandering across the road or lounging on side walks flicking off the flies.
A young boy riding his bicycle rickshaw pulls up alongside, 20 rupees around town for an hour shopping - “How old are you?” - 12!
Footpaths full of people wrapped in blankets, squatting around little fires warming their hands.
Horse and cart pull up alongside a SUV.

Auto rickshaws pull up alongside us one after another wanting to take us wherever we want….”where are you going”…….you think about the answer, what implications are there going to be……no thank you - that’s safe. The last one stops as you arrive at Pizza Hut, he chats, 1 hour later we walk out of Pizza Hut and there he is out on the road, standing up on his bike waving his hand with a beaming smile on his face - he has waited for us just in case we might say yes.

It is amusing, they are just trying to make a living and really there is no point getting pissed off with them, it will not make any difference.

We decided to send our jackets back, Hotel says we must pack it ourselves, Post Office do not do it for us (Thailand and Vietnam have packaging services). So our driver packs a box for us and grabs his car cleaning rag, and hands sews this on like wrapping paper (for security he says, its compulsory). We got to the post office. They need to check the box…oh no…so we unpick the sewing, and pay this lady to re-pack it. She hand sews a piece of textile around the box, then stamps hot wax on the joins. Every package that is sent internationally is manually checked, hand sewn and stamped with hot wax and duplicate forms filled out. Amazing, and what a performance.

Sights

Fatehpur Sikri - Heading out of Bharatpur and into Agra we stopped at a fort…yes another fort….but we liked this one and spent a couple of hours roaming around. It was well maintained and there were no renovations going on for a change. They built it only to realize that there was no water, so they only stayed for 15 years, moving their city to Agra. Our driver advised no guides as they just make up any story, monuments are well labeled (they even say - we believe this was….) He also said no auto rickshaw as they will attach you to a guide, there is a bus, take the bus.

So we walk past some shops on the way through the park to the bus and the normal….come into my shop…..come into my shop….we get to the bus and its empty except for the bus driver doing his maintenance. Auto rickshaw driver comes into the bus and starts telling us how this is a “killer bus”, how “the bus does not start for another 45 minutes”, he will take us now, “bus no good”. We stand our ground, he smiles, we chat and then he hops off the bus and the bus leaves. When we are finished and waiting for the bus to arrive to go back down, a rickshaw driver tell us, “bus not coming, finished for the day” at the same time the bus rounds the corner. We get off the bus and the shop owners are pretending to parking officials showing us the way back to the driver car park, which is the wrong way but the right way to their shops. I mean to say, come on! But they give up in the end and always with a smile.

Forts - well out of all of them in Rajasthan our favorites were Fatehpur Sikri, Kumbalgarh and Jaisalmer.

Agra has heaps of monuments, apparently since the 1500’s each Emperor tried to outdo his predecessor in building monuments. We visited:

Baby Taj - yeh its nice, only needs a quick look, lots of beggars outside, drivers may talk you out of going because its hard to get a park. I liked it, but having seen it prior to the Taj I think it took some of the WOW out of the Taj. Carl did not think much of it or believe it was worth the effort or even the money to go inside. It depends on your appreciation of the architecture and how much of it you want to see.

Akbar’s Mausoleum - The environment is nice with great gates, a tomb, and large green lawns covered in deer, squirrels, and monkeys who offer lots of entertainment. We enjoyed the monkeys here scrapping over a packet of chippies.

Taj Mahal - well we got up early to see the sun rise on the Taj. The setting is fantastic, the Taj is beautiful, it houses 2 tombs, the husband and wife he built it for. We thought it was awesome, an amazing building, it was made of white marble and patterns, apparently the patterns were made from gems. We think though that if we had just arrived in India it would have had more of an impact, but after sightseeing in India for over 3 weeks we have had a lead up. It is beautiful though and amazing.

Agra Fort and Palace- having seen many other forts, this one we could have given a miss, don’t get me wrong it was fabulous, but we have seen many many fort. The history was cool - it was built in the 1500’s buy Shah Jahan’s grandfather. Shah did further additions, mainly marble, and was the one who built the Taj for his second wife who died whilst giving birth to their 14th child. No surprises there. He later ended up being imprisoned there, for 8 years until his death, by his son who seized power. You can view both of their tombs inside the Taj

Accommodation Review
Maya Guest House, this was in a fantastic location, it was right next to one of the three gates to the Taj. We also loved the street, had lots of action and the people on the street were nice. It was also in walking distance to Pizza Hut and Costa Coffee. Bliss. The prices in Agra are more expensive for obvious reasons, so we had to pay like 1500 rupees for a night (NZ$52). The manager and staff were just so nice and accommodating when we had to hang around all day for a train, so I hate to say it but the bathrooms are not clean, and restaurant food was tasteless. But in staying this, just for one night if you are used to Indian bathrooms, as a budget option, the location is great. You can find it on hotelbookers, does not have own website that I can find.


Rajasthan Driver Update/Review
Well we have spent 23 days with Suresh on our trip around Rajasthan, and I will say that we were extremely dubious about this whole driver thing. Our expectations have been exceeded. We never bought anything expensive, in fact we only brought one thing, so there was no commission for him from any shops. He never had a problem with it or brought it up and never put pressure on us to go to a shop. He always asked and if we said no, we did not go. I am not sure really why we ever said yes! He never expected to dine with us and the whole time we only had like 2 lunches with him as he took us to local places to eat. He was never an intrusion and always made sure we were happy with accommodation and food. We always felt safe with his driving.

I must admit though we did agree to his accommodation recommendations, and I don’t know if there would be any pressure if we had controlled this ourselves. The reason we did this is we found it worked well for us, he arranged everything by phone, all we did was tell him the budget for the day, and check the review in the Lonely Plant. We always got to view the room first and say yes or no, if no we would leave and look at others - but this only happened once. There were only 3 not in the Lonely Planet (2 being the best we stayed at) and that would have been how we would have self chosen our accommodation anyway. The only one that was not up to standard was in Jaisalmer, probably due to our budget of 1000 rupees in such a touristy place. As we took his recommendations he was also happy because most of these places also catered well for the drivers, like a bed and food for a small price. Not that this is your problem, but even what he called “good driver accommodation” was a mattress and blanket in the staff room.

We got to see more places and sights than we would ever have seen, and it was just so easy getting there - he would take us everywhere. He saved us money by telling us when we needed guides and when we did not, and in most cases we did not. He speaks good English, although there were times when it was a little hard to understand, but not many.

We gave him his 10% service fee/tip plus another 4%, we would have liked to give him more but will send him some smooth Cadbury chocolate when we get back. They do not have any of the fantastic flavours we have at home, only nut and fruit ones.

We have read and heard many horror stories about drivers and there are no reviews that we could find on the internet, but I definitely recommend Suresh, we do not have one complaint about his service at all. We are also pleased (until we hear to the contrary) with the price through Ashok Travel, they even gave us free train tickets from Agra - Varansi - Delhi, although I think that was also due to our Agent, don’t know his name but he was nice not like the other one.

If you have any questions about our driver, please email us : [e-mail] or contact him directly as below:

Driver Contact Details:
Suresh Sharma
H 84, J J Colony
Bakkarwala.
Nangloi
North Delhi 110-041
DELHI, INDIA
Mobile: [phone]

We do not have an email address for him unfortunately. Suresh is a driver so you can hire him by the day, you don’t need to go on a 3 week trip.

Travel Company we used:
Ashok Travel, (Amax Tours)
www.amaxtoursindia.com
Email: [e-mail]

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Photos

STD Available
Indian Phone Booth

Mechanic Shop
You cannot see him but he is working on the car at the side.

Cow dung for Sale
Firestarters