Agraphobia

My sleeper to Agra was cold, but a little more spacious than my first sleeper in India. I had a weird man in my compartment that was on about the importance of getting married early. Oops, sorry!

The train trotted into Agra’s main station in the mid morning, I tried to book a train to Varanasi the same night, no good. Will have to stay here for one night. Outside was the usual bollocks of rickshaws and touts. I try to walk on by blanking every one of them. On my walk towards town another 20 or so peddled alongside me all knowing if they keep up with me they will get a fat commission from whatever hotel I stayed at. I stop most of them following me by placing rubble in the road, blanking them and a good old fashioned "Fuck off" every now and then.

My hotel was the Tourist rest house, it didn't give commission to rickshaw touts, that was a major reason for choosing that hotel. It was really nice and a safe haven for pissed of travellers like me. Time for a shower and a quick breakfast before heading off to the centre of town. I wish I hadn't. More rickshaw drivers offering me all the sights for pennies. I refuse to use these!

Agra just seems to be another Indian town where noise and pollution is king. I was expecting the home of the Taj Mahal to be a little more organised and tidier. This is India’s showpiece city and it’s messier than all of the other towns I have visited so far.

I head to Agra fort, another red fort similar to the one in Delhi, it looks bigger from the outside but not much in the middle. That evening I stayed in the Taj area for dinner and with no bars or any other tourists about I head back to the hotel.

The next day I headed once again to the Taj area, this time to see the thing itself. Yes it’s big, yes its beautiful, yes it’s the finest mausoleum ever built. But it is ruined by pushy, noisy Indian tourists all wanting the number one photograph, just buy a postcard! No wonder Princess Diana looked pissed off when she visited! Going into the Taj Mahal was like going into a tumble dryer, plenty of hot sweaty people walking around the coffin in the middle. A amazing building, just a amazing annoyance. Thank god I was leaving Agra that night on my train to Varanasi.

There are no photos to publish on this entry, as I do not want to promote this place at all, if you want a photo of the Taj Mahal, image search on Google.

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