Hilary's Adventure: day 6: Agra Fort

Today we had a nice little sleep in. The boys stayed up very late talking and drinking. We had to check out of our room at 10am. Ceaser was staying on for another night at the hotel, then going off and doing his own thing. Until our train to Varanasi at 11pm we were borrowing his room to store our bags safely. At 10am we had to change rooms because Ceasers had only payed for 2 nights and his room was booked out to other people. The room we moved to was non a/c and it was a bit smaller. That didn’t really matter because we spent the day out and about.

After we changed rooms and the boys woke up we went and had breakfast. We all felt like eggs so we just headed over to the restaurant inside the hotel. The ordering system is very different from home. They just give you a pad and pen and you write down what you want. I guess so there is no mistakes with translation and alike. I ordered scramble eggs with toast. They were the worst scrambled eggs I have ever had. The eggs we very light in colour and bounced when dropped.

After breakfast we headed to the Agra Fort. We took 2 Rickshore things that were petal power. The riders of those things must have very strong legs to move the bike, cart and 2 extra people up and down hills in the humid hot weather. The hills in India are not very big or steep so it is no too bad, but still. The ride to the fort was normally not a long one about 10 to 15min; it is only about 7ks away from the Taj Mahal.

On the way Alex found a store that sold these sugar lollies that are famous in this part of India. They are either pineapple or mango flavoured; cylinder shaped and about the size of your big toe. The sugar things have almost a crunchy outside texture with jelly like middle is probably the best way to describe them. They are also sickly sweet as you can imagine. Alex bought the pineapple flavoured one to try. We wanted some of both but you can only buy a box and a box is about half a kilo. We decided that we didn’t need a kilo of sugar just to try something we heard so much about.

Also on the way to the fort our driver got a flat tyre on one of his back wheels. He stopped to pump it up and as he was pumping there was an almighty bang and the tyre blow up. It scared Kyle and me because we were not expecting the noise. The driver called over a ‘mate’ to follow the other cart to Agra Fort. We jumped in the cart and off we went.

Just after the flat tyre Ceaser said he needed credit for his Indian mobile and could we get some on the way. The drivers took a detour to get him credit. The process must be lot harder than in Australia. Ceaser was gone for about 10min into the store. I think the store people put the credit on your phone instead of you doing it yourself.

Finally we reached Agra Fort. This Fort is HUGE. It’s like one giant maze that people you to live in a defend Agra from. At one point I think it was the Capital of either India or the province. Once we entered we lost Ceaser but he found some Spanish girls and went off wondering round with them instead. The fort would change colour from a red brick to a white marble. Different areas were either white or red. Both were interesting in their own right. It took nearly 2 hours to explore the whole thing. On our way out it started to rain. Its monsoon season in India so when it rains it’s not a shower but a down pour so think that you can barely see threw it. On one side of the Fort you can see the Taj Mahal over the river. We happened to be looking at the Taj when it started to rain so the Taj went by by in the rain. Some of the white marble became very slippery in the rain. The rain didn’t last long maybe 15min. After the rain we headed back to the start to make our way back to the hotel for lunch.

For lunch we went to another roof top overlooking the Taj. This one didn’t have a very good view. It was obscured by building and a tree. The food was good tho. The most interesting thing at lunch was deep fired whole chillies that Kyle and Alex ordered.

It was nearly sun set by this point so we changed views to see the sun set over the Taj. We headed back to the place we had lunch yesterday to see have the best views. Kyle headed back to the room; he wasn’t feeling very well and wanted to lie down. Alex, Ceaser and I sat on this roof top hoping for the clouds to do away for the sun to come out. We had no luck today, it decided to rain heavily instead. After sitting there waiting for the rain to stop we headed back to the room. By this point Kyle had fallen asleep and was snoring.

In the room before our train to Varanasi we packed, sorted out photos and wrote blogs. At about 9pm we had a quick dinner in the hotel just to tire us over for the 12 hour train ride. After dinner we said our good byes to Ceaser and got in a rickshore to the train station.

At the train station we had a disaster. We discovered that one of Alex’s bags was not in the rickshore. It was the bag that had his passport, train ticket and computer. Once we discovered it was gone Alex jumped back into the rickshore to go back to the hotel to see if it was left behind. Kyle and I waited by the road for his return. It was a long wait. Kyle and I discussed what we should do if it was not there. We decided that if it was really not there we had to get back to Delhi to the Embassy to have another passport issued. Alex is leaving India for Greece the day after us so he needs it to get out of the country. The computer and train tickets were not as big a problem; they could be replaced fairly easily. He was gone a very long 20 mins. When he came back luck was on our side and the bag was sitting on the road were we got into the rickshore. Lucky it was night time otherwise someone would have picked up the bag and made off with it. Then again if it was day light we would have seen the bag and not left it behind. We think that in loading up the rickshore it go knocked onto its front leaving the black side facing up, which made it blend in with the road and night.

By this point of the night our train was just pulling up to the station and we almost had to run for it. Once on the train we found our seats easily and Alex assessed the damage to his bag and belongings. We thought the rickshore may have driven over it because it had mud on one side. As it turned out everything was fine, working and still there. Our luck was being very kind to us today. I think it is because of all the help and kindness we gave Ceaser, Karma was kicking in. The train was nice and comfortable. They provided 2 sheets, a pillow and a blanket which was nice and clean. We had a compartment to ourselves with 4 beds and plenty of leg room. Train riding is a fun way of seeing the country side. Not that we really saw very much because it was night time. The train got away on time and we all tucked ourselves up in bed and went to sleep.