The Familial Saga Cont'd, Part 3

Today was my first, and possibly only, experience of first class train travel in India. I was slightly amused to see that the ratio of white people to Indian was greatly increased here. I have to say, it was quite pleasant traveling first class. You get a lot of space, meals, tchai (though they don’t make it for you, like they do in second general class), a newspaper, and a rose (a welcome but slightly useless addition). The rose made me think of TB and the plague. Possibly we are meant to smell it on the station platform to protect our upper-class noses. There was a mahaaraani on the train as well. She was very glamorous and had booked two seats together so that no one could go near her. I think this may be my only brush with royalty ever.
Once at Agra a new driver met us at the train station. I am actually quite glad of this driver, as Agra is a hole, and so being able to get through it form the comfort of a curtained minibus is highly preferable to the alternative of being exposed to Agra city in an Auto. As before, there really is no way to describe the horrifying prospect that is Agra. I just don’t understand why that city, the home of the Taj Mahal of all places, had become such a dump. And coming from Delhi, I know what a dump is. Agra is like the worse parts of Delhi rolled in to a city. Our hotel however, was a beautiful paradoresque Hilton that sat just outside the main city of Agra. It was like an oasis of calm greenery amongst all the dust and rubbish. I couldn’t quite believe somewhere like that could exist in Agra when I saw it on the net beforehand. We dumped our stuff and went into the pool. I am getting used to this pool malarkey. Mum is feeling a bit delicate again. Not so good.
This afternoon we went with our very helpful guide Amu to the Taj Mahal. The family were all blown away, as you must be when you first see it, but I didn’t have the same sense of awe I felt the first time. I think because the sun wasn’t great for some reason that afternoon, so the marble wasn’t shining as brightly as it could, and also the huge amount of tourists. When we went up inside the structure there was such a crush of people and the queue went on for absolutely ages, right down the steps to the point where you take your shoes off. Euan was feeling a bit funky as well, which didn’t really help proceedings. After the Taj we went to Agra fort, which was more interesting than expected. It was beautiful inside, with mirrored rooms and gold plating all over the place. There were fountains everywhere, no longer running unfortunately, but they once ran with rose water apparently. We wandered through Agra fort (which is lived in by monkeys it seems) for an hour or two until Euan began to complain of cramp. On the way back we stopped off at a marble workshop where they still make marble in the style of the Taj Mahal. There was a huge showroom downstairs that had all these beautiful tables and vases and things in the marble. One table had blue semiprecious stones arranged into intricate rose patterning. I would have loved to have had it. Unfortunately, the price tag was a bit above our range, so we bought two coasters: one with an elephant and one with a parrot.
Had food in the hotel. My first steak in three months. It was quite exciting, but I don’t think it was cow…probably buffalo. A new meat to add to my list of ‘Foods I have Eaten’. We are only here for tonight, which is completely fine by me. There really is no more to do in Agra than the Taj and the Fort. I am glad I got to see the fort this time, as last time we just left straight after seeing the Taj. I can now safely not come anywhere near Agra…until Iain comes here...
This morning Euan is most definitely out of it. He spent last night being quite sick, which is not so good. So we are no longer going to Fatipur Sikri. It is an abandoned city outside of Agra that was built by Akbar and then abandoned, probably due to lack of water. I would like to have seen it. We passed by it, and it is absolutely massive: a perfectly preserved and unused city in the middle of nowhere. Very weird. We needed to travel for some time before reaching the station at which we get the train into Ranthambore in Rajasthan. I can’t wait to get out into the country side proper. The roads here are so dreadful it took us about 2 hours to go 60 km. You keep getting stuck behind trucks, or camels, or buffalo. We passed through some pretty villages though, and took some interesting photographs. On the train, we were in 3rd class A/C I think. It was like second general class, but with air con and a bit more space. I am quite glad mum and dad get a small experience of what the trains are really like here for the most part. The journey is like 3 hours. So we will get into Ranthambore in time for tea. Euan is still sick, but mum has recovered. Going vaguely well. The train passed through a lot of desert land or just scrub. It is so completely unpopulated and untouched. So strange in comparison to the crush of the cities. Ranthambore station is like something out of a novel. There were wild boar kicking around, cows, women and naked babies cooking their tea on the platform, holy men in bright orange bands and not much else. It was completely hectic. We drove out of the main town and out into more scrub land. There are hills here as well, which is also very strange coming from somewhere so stubbornly flat as Delhi. Our hotel is called the Tiger Den Resort. It is lots of little cottage type things grouped together. It is really nice actually, and has a pool and then a buffet style canteen where you can also sit out and have drinks if you like. It is quite hot though; so sitting outside is a bit uncomfortable. Decided to test this pool immediately and it proved to be excellent. I am trying to take advantage of the swimming as much as I can, as I won’t get another chance I fear until December when I come home. After the swim we had a bit of food. Euan has recovered enough to eat plain chapatti, which is better than nothing. After dinner we were sitting out and got talking to this older Indian couple. The lady turned out to be a lecturer in DU in English Lit at south campus! Small world. They live in Gurgaon, so they are evidently minted. Their talk showed it – all about golf, their ‘little place in the himalayas’ and how they came to Ranthambore in order to escape the city on occasion, like it was a completely regular and unremarkable thing. They were very nice however, but my dad resented them not offering him some of the massive bottle of Johnny Walker they were taking drams from. There were all these little black beetles everywhere, which apparently come in with the harvest and then die. We happen to have come within their ten-day life time, and so we were covered in them by the time we went in to sleep. It is nice to be in the fresh air and away from the dust. Makes you realise how bad Delhi is for my lungs.