Day 18: Agra in a Day

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We woke up around 3 in the morning and set off to New Delhi Railway Station at 4am. Tenzin was the cab driver. The scheduled departure time for our train is 5.25 but it was delayed for about 15 minutes. We took AC two tier class. It took us 3 hours to reach Agra. We reached Agra around 9am. Outside the station, there is a booth for prepaid taxi. We took the full-day taxi non-AC for Rs 650, the packaged came with a guide and a driver. On top of 650, we also need to pay Rs 5 for service fee. Our first destination was Hotel Maya where we had our breakfast. It was a clean restaurant with an over-attentive staff. They had the best toilet we've ever been to in our whole journey. After breakfast, we went to Agra Fort. We bought the combined ticket of Agra Fort and Taj Mahal for Rs 1000. The combined ticket at Agra Fort had a few advantages: Rs 50 cheaper compared to buying both tickets separately, the queue in Agra Fort was shorter compared to Taj Mahal.

After Agra Fort, we were brought to a place that sells marble stuffs. The staff showed us the steps in creating marble stone that has stones inscribed on it. We bought a few stuffs there though the things were quite expensive. After that, we went to have lunch at Pizza Hut. When we requested to go to Pizza Hut, our guide told us the taste is not as nice as the real Pizza Hut because the chef is not that skillful, but we went anyway and we loved the food there (I had tomato spicy pasta, and bought Chicken Corn Pizza takeaway for dinner). We also saw other customer having McD fries and realized that our guide was not trustworthy because he had told us there was no McD at Agra.

After lunch, we went to carpet store, jewelry store and sarree store. We didn’t buy anything from these 3 stores as we had been spending quite a lot at marble store and the 3 stores sell expensive things. In the car, our guide explicitly told us to give him tips, and we grew unhappy. Elena told him we weren’t aware that we need to pay for guide, on top of the taxi rental. He then didn’t mention about it anymore.

Next stop was Taj Mahal. We purposely visited Taj Mahal late in the day because we wanted to see it during sunset. It was around 4.30pm when we entered. Our guide stayed in the car as usual. In the entrance of Taj, a tour guide offered us his service for Rs 100. He said his official price was Rs 475 but he had no business for a few days so he offered his service for Rs 100. We thought it was a pretty good deal, so we took it. His name is Mohamed Imran. He explained so many things to us about Taj and he was always smiling from the start to the end. He was a great photographer too. He said he was lucky to be born and live in Agra because Taj is one of the world wonders and he has the chance to go to Taj at least one a week, which is Friday for a prayer. I really like his outlook. Unlike our taxi guide who told us that the people in Agra has not much job opportunities because the government has prohibited manufacturing in Agra to preserve the Taj, therefore he had to become a guide to make a living. Well, if I were him, I would do whatever job I can find with my whole heart until I save enough money to go to other cities to pursue what I love to do in life.

We bought a few marble stuffs at the store outside Taj and when the shopkeepers told me the price of the stuffs, I was furious. The prices were around 40% cheaper! The elephant marbles were sold at Rs 400 in the marble store we went earlier, but it was only Rs 250 in the store at Taj, and I had brought 3 from the earlier store. Can you imagine how angry I was? I told Elena that I was gonna give any tips at all to the taxi guide. We bought a few Taj in the water keychain before saying goodbye to our Taj guide. We gave him only Rs 15 tips because we had no more small money left except coins because we had spent all the small money to buy the Taj keychains. We then went to Agra Fort Station to catch our train to Varanasi and didn’t give any tips at all to the taxi guide.

At the station, we asked the officers if they could check our status because we had bought a ticket on waiting list and we were not sure whether we ended up with a confirmed seat. The officers were not of much help at all, he simply said we don’t have a confirmed seat without checking. We asked another officer and he told us to talk to conductor of the train when the train arrived. We called Tenzin to ask him to help as check our status and he told us only one of us has a confirmed seat. We were so confused and anxious. We called the travel agent in McLeod Ganj to ask his help to check our status and to advise us what to do, he couldn’t check for us because he’s not in the office at the moment and he advised us to bribe the conductor to be given seats of those people who didn’t show up. It doesn’t sound good. Then Elena went to ticket counter to ask whether we can buy a new ticket because our seat is not confirmed, then the officer said we should share the seat, and there’s no need to buy a new seat. Finally we decided to share the small bed. The train came 3 hours late. We couldn’t move a lot while we slept, but we did slept well till the next morning, I guess that’s because we were so tired the day before.

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