Agra - bah!

It's inarguably the most famous building in India. It swarms with tourists, both Indian and foreign. The entry price is, by Indian standards, extortionate at 750 Rs., and the queues to get in can be horrendous. The standard vista of it constitutes one of the most cliche travel photos in the world. It has inspired countless amounts of poetry, some good (such as Tagore's line about a "teardrop... on the face of eternity"), but much more bad, and after even a couple of hours in Agra, you get sick of seeing the same familiar outline everywhere you look.

And yet, it is still quite possibly the most beautiful building I have ever seen. Ladies and gentlemen, the Taj Mahal.











Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about Agra. It's a shame, really, because although the Taj is stunning, the city of Agra (which surrounds it) is, for the most part, fucking horrible. There are a couple of interesting monuments scattered amongst a nasty, dirty industrial sprawl, and the locals (at least those who I dealt with) are generally poor, jaded, and out for the tourist rupee in any possible way. The hotels are dingy, the food is bad, and if it wasn't for the Taj, there would be almost no reason to even get off the train.

I say "almost", because there are some gems. Agra Fort, built by the Mughal emperors some time before the turn of the century, is almost as impressive as the Taj. Huge red sandstone walls surround lush green courtyards, and the architecture of the buildings is sublime. The overall effect is (as with the Taj) distinctly Islamic, and it took a distinct effort of will before I could bring myself to abandon the peace behind the walls and return to the chaos that it Agra's streets.









The day after I visited the Taj, I decided to take a day trip to the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri, some 40kms out of town and the third on the list of Agra's "must see" sights. I negotiated the traffic to the local bus stand, where I proceeded to wait for a bus. "When will the bus get here?", I asked at midday. "Oh, thirty minutes," replied the disinterested wallah in the information booth. I asked him again an hour later. "Oh," he said, and looked at his watch. "Thirty minutes."





Having decided that the odds of the bus turning up within a reasonable timescale were slim to none, I rounded up three other Westerners who were obviously in the same jam, and went looking for a taxi. After agreeing on 500 Rs. total to get us all there and back, the driver spouted off some rapid Hindi to some passers-by, then said "Same trip, auto-rickshaw, 400!" Considering that the 25 rupees we each stood to save was enough for a lassi, the choice was obvious.

The auto-rickshaw, or tuk-tuk, is a ubiquitous form of transport in India. They're maybe the length of a large motorcycle, with three wheels, a handlebar, a backseat capable of fitting three people if you don't mind a bit of intimacy, and a canvas canopy. They're cheaper than taxis, more expensive than cycle rickshaws (but morally less questionable), and generally a good way to get around a city.

What they're NOT good for, it turns out, is medium- or long-distance highway travel. Spending over an hour crunched into a tiny seat while we tootled along at 35kph, continually being passed by just about every kind of vehicle with wheels (and even some without), choking on dust and smog since my entire upper body was hanging out of the cab, was not a particularly enjoyable experience. When we got to Fatehpur Sikri, my mood only got shabbier, since the touts turned out to be far worse than anything else I've encountered in India (one of them actually grabbed me with two hands, which resulted in him going sprawling in the gutter, and me enjoying a little bit of catharsis).

Once we'd got past the ticket booth though, everything got better. Like Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri is an oasis of calm, not to mention a beautiful architectural masterpiece. It was built from scratch by one of the Mughal Emperors as a capital, and a home for the arts, poetry, and all things beautiful. Apparently it worked pretty well for a couple of months, until it became apparent that the nearby water sources were simply insufficient for the city to survive. After trying desperately to rectify the situation, the city was slowly abandoned to the elements. Now, resting quietly on a rise in the Gangetic Plains, it feels less a ghost town than a peaceful place of meditation that was perhaps a little before its time.









Once again, it was hard to leave, especially since the auto ride back was just an unpleasant as it had been the first time. Then it was time for me to leave Agra, on the first train possible. On that note, let me conclude with an image that I feel does a good job of summing up Indian train stations: