Agra, an amazing empty building and a train journey from hell!


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Asia » India » Uttar Pradesh » Agra
October 23rd 2014
Published: October 23rd 2014
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I'll start briefly in Varanasi, so I thought I'll get back to the hotel two hours before the train so I can pack and chill before a 13 hour train journey. First off some kid leads me miles away taking me to a tuk tuk stand, then the fucking driver doesn't know where my hotel is! What kind of tuk tuk driver doesn't know where things are in the city?! Dickhead!
So we're driving around for like an hour, at this point I'm thinking in going to miss the train.
I get to the station with five minutes to find the platform and train, which in India is one of the hardest things, especially at Varanasi train station, there's fuck all in English and no one who speaks English, nightmare.
I manage to just about find the platform and catch the train just in time because it's late.
I've paid 900rs for the ticket at the travel agents, expecting to have my own bed like the last journey, turns out I'm in the bottom class, and sharing a seat with five people, another fucking Varanasi scam!
Eventually the train empties some and I have the bed to myself, so I go to sleep and am awoken at 3AM by a man who's been happily sat somewhere else for the rest of the journey, but now decides he wants to sit in his seat, he had a ticket for it to be fair, but it's bullshit that I even ended up in that carriage! Diwali travelling I suppose.

I decide that as there isn't much to do in Agra from what I've been told and read other than the Taj and the fort, so I book a ticket out of there to Delhi upon arrival.
You can leave your bag in Agra cantt station all day for 20rs, so I don't have to carry my huge rucksack around, class.
I get a tuk tuk to the taj, I paid 500rs for the guy to take me to the taj and wait, then the fort and wait and take me to a restaurant, and again wait then take me to the station.
I arrive at the Taj, 750rs entry, 20rs for SAARCS (people from India, Nepal, Shri Lanka, Bhutan and a couple of others), it's fucking annoying, but in the same respect it's still only £7.50 to see one of the wonders of the world, same thing back home would be like £50!
My glimpse of the Taj and I'm literally staring open mouthed at the cunt, it's fucking amazing, it doesn't look like it's actually there, I think it was built that way, part of the illusion. The gardens surrounding it are really nice and clean, unlike a lot of temples etc in India. I'd been told the Taj was just an empty building, but I wasn't prepared for how empty it actually is, just a cenotaph in the centre, apparently lined up exactly with the coffin of the girl it was built for, who died giving birth to her fucking 14th child! Mental.
It was a lot smaller inside than I ever though it would be, I always assumed there'd be loads of different rooms and stuff, but it's just one big empty room, with beautiful carvings engraved in the marble. It's fucking amazing and I didn't feel remotely let down, unlike some of the things I've seen on this trip!

Next off to Agra fort, according to the guide book a poor man's version of the red fort in Delhi. According to everyone I met who'd been to both, it's the other way around and you can't even go in the buildings at red fort, I think I'll give that one a miss!
It would have been so much better if you walk around the walls of the fort, like you can in Chester and York, but ah well, some cool engravings in the walls of some of the buildings and an amazing view of the Taj, which literally looks way more impressive from a distance, and weirdly looks bigger the further away you are from it, apparently another intentional design, it's fucking class!

Now off the Delhi for two nights, I need a day off, India is tiring! Get me to Goa!
The train to Delhi was apparently at 4, so I arrive and the board says 5:10, fucking brilliant, stuck waiting for an hour, could be worse, the train could be a few hours late....oh it is. Fuck sake!
I end up getting on the train at around 8 and arriving in Delhi around half 11, luckily I met a polish girl on the platform and Brazilian girl on the train, made the time pass quicker and gave me the confidence I was on the right train etc.

Right, Delhi for the first night of Diwali!

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