Passage through India – An Early Start in Agra

Another early start from Ranthambore and we leave for a six mile taxi ride over the rutted track and the horribly pot holed road to the railway station as the sun begins to rise over the forest.  Our luggage has gone on ahead with D P Sharma and the coach. Early because we have to catch the morning express train to Agra.

Sawai Madhopur Railway Station was surprisingly calm, quite unlike the madness of Delhi and Jaipur, a lot more relaxed and laid-back, it doesn’t resemble a refugee camp, passengers waiting for trains are very casual, we are the ones showing unnecessary impatience as we wait for the approaching train and listen for the hoot of the horn that sounds like a roaring tiger and which announces its arrival from a mile or so away.

Soon it is here, it seems to limp into the station, a little late but we have our allocated seats and settle in for the ride.  A proper carriage this time.  Only a shortish journey again today, just two hours or so, so no travel catering but there is a constant flow of vendors.  In the UK there is a drinks trolley on wheels but in India they carry baskets on their heads, news vendors, tea sellers, water sellers, English snickers sellers, snack sellers and after them the rubbish collectors.  It should be chaotic but it all seems to run very smoothly.

Indian Railways, under the ownership of the Ministry of Railways operates the national railway system. It manages the World’s  fourth largest national railway system with a running track length of sixty-five thousand miles.  With more than 1.2 million employees, it is the world’s largest railway employer.  It operates nearly fourteen thousand trains a day, carries eight and a half billion passengers a year and achieves 95% punctuality.

I wish these guys could run the hopelessly inefficient Trans-Pennine railway line in the UK.

Except for the on-board lavatories that is which are well worth avoiding at all costs.  I was never able to work out just what might require an emergency flush.  Best not to think about it I guess.

On account of the early start we arrived mid-morning in Agra.  D P and Chandu were there to meet us, get us onto the coach and straight off for a visit.  The Red Fort of Agra and another inevitable UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There is an interesting entry system in many of these places in India.  An overseas tourist pays about ten times more than a visitor from India but the compensation is that they get to use a fast lane system which is about ten times quicker to get through the gate so that seems very fair.

Agra fort was completed in 1573 and served as the main residence of the rulers of the Mughal dynasty until 1638, when the capital was shifted from Agra to Delhi.  More than a fort, a walled city once full of magnificent palaces and fine buildings but later demolished by the British when it became an army garrison.  When a place like this gets used as an army garrison there is inevitably a lot of looting and damage and Red Fort is no exception.

During WW2 a lot of stately homes were requisitioned by the UK government for use by the Allied armies and suffered vandalism and damage.

Sadly this is a familiar story about misbehaving troops in requisitioned big houses and country estates and many suffered the same fate. No need for the Luftwaffe to get involved. just leave it to the army and the GI’s.  Apparently owners in general didn’t mind their properties being borrowed for schools or hospitals but dreaded the armed forces being moved in because this guaranteed damage and huge expense.

We liked the Red Fort, especially the top with views over the Taj Mahal, some refused to look because they didn’t want to take away from the actual visit tomorrow but I didn’t think that it would especially spoil anything so looked regardless.  It was rather misty so not a great view anyway.

After the Red Fort it was lunch-time and we dined in a splendid restaurant and enjoyed a thali, which is a sort of taster plate with ten or so varieties of food to sample and the really good thing that there were seconds available of those we liked the best.  My favourite was the lamb curry as it almost always was.  And the naan bread because as everywhere it was fabulous, so fabulous that it will be sometime before I can buy a packaged naan bread in a supermarket in the UK again.  Even in UK restaurants I swear that I have never tasted naan like in India,

I am happy to declare it the best lunchtime meal in the whole two weeks…

After lunch we moved on to the ‘Mini Taj’, a Mughul mausoleum,  the Tomb of I’timad-Ud-Daulah and considered a masterpiece of the domeless style of Mughal tombs.  It was the first building finished in white marble and marks the transitional phase from red stone to marble.  The Mughals had got to spend all that money on something I guess.  It was worth a visit I suppose but everyone was waiting for the visit to Taj Mahal but that would have to wait until tomorrow.

Tonight we stayed in a very nice hotel close to the city centre and we found a liquor store only a hundred yards away so stocked up with reasonably priced wine.  It was on a busy main road and for some bizarre reason Kim decided to cross.  What absolute madness but somehow she made it across two manic carriageways.  I got stuck half way and Kim got stranded on the other side.  Eventually a local man noticed her predicament, took her arm and guided her across safely.

A local is always useful in these situations, advice in Italy for example is to find nuns crossing a road and join them because whilst Italian drivers will happily run down pedestrians they draw the line at nuns.