Delhi and Agra

I’m sure I will struggle to find a place in the world that is like the capital of India, Delhi.


It was interesting to see that the lonely planet guide’s description of this place “….it’s crowded, aggravating, polluted, extreme, and hectic, but hey- nobody’s perfect”. It is most certainly all that and more! I would say that the main smells you get while travelling around are that of urine, rubbish and pollution. But in saying that, when you go to Delhi that is what you expect, it’s not visited for scenery reasons, it’s the people, the size and the craziness of it that attracts so many!

I left the farm on Saturday night along with an American girl Katie. We caught the bus for the 11 hour journey, which cost us about $4 each. I was expecting the oldest most rickety bus possible- and that’s what we got! My main fear for this bus ride was that I would have to, at some point in the 11 hours, get out and go to the toilet. There was no way I wanted to have to have to go on this ride (the bumping of the bus didn’t help my bladder out much) as there are hardly any toilets available, rather people just go on the side of the road. Actually, let me rephrase that, the men go on the side of the road, and the women...-well actually, I don’t know what they do. I took a number of steps to prevent me having to go. Step1- I carefully rationed my water supplies. Step 2- I started praying that the Lord would either supernaturally empty my bladder for me or that I wouldn’t need to go. And finaly, everyone knows that the more you think about it, the more likely you’re gonna need to go, so step 3 was to just not think about it. You’ll be happy to know that I made it the whole journey without needing to go once, even if all the men seemed to stop about 20 times that ride to empty themselves!

We reached Delhi around 5am the next morning, as nothing was open that time Katie and I caught a auto rickshaw to the nearest McDonalds which we hoped would be open. It was pelting with rain, and we spent about 15 minutes in it searching for the Maccas sign, by which time everything we were wearing as well as carrying was drenched through (when we got to maccas, it was closed). Unlike in Adelaide, the streets in the early hours of the morning are never deserted. There are hundreds of homeless people sleeping under any sort of shelter they can find. Maccas was located in Connaught Place, which is the upper-class shopping and hotel district of Delhi, and it was quite a contrast seeing the ragged, dirty sleeping bodies lying in front of the pristine clean glass of the designer shops.


(Pic taken from a rickshaw of another autorickshaw, so i apologise for the blur)



Going with Hindi speaking Katie to Delhi was a huge help! It is very manageable to navigate your way through the sea of rickshaw drivers and hostels with just English here, but it takes half the time if you speak Hindi, and you also win brownie points and better deals. The fact that we were dressed just like the locals also meant that we earnt more respect and less attention than the other female tourists in their completely culturally unacceptable short shorts and tank tops.


(Me infront of India gate)

Shopping in Delhi is by far my most favorite shopping ever!!! I am not a fan of shopping at home, but here it’s more of a walk through Indian cultural than it is just seeing, trying, buying and carting home. I loved haggling and learnt a few good tips here and there. About 80% of the time I would leave with my product at my price, after walking out and being chased by the shopkeeper to come back. As I was looking at clothing stalls, which had WAY too much variety at incredible prices, I started to notice that a fair bit of fabrics and clothes looked very familiar. I realised that I had clothes at home from exactly the same fabrics as they have here, a number of times I saw my exact dresses, which I knew were made in India, but I suppose didn’t expect to actually SEE in India!


(shopping heaven :P)

We went to pick up Katharine (Katies friend) from the airport that night which was good practice for me for when ill have to do it. The Delhi airport signage system is rather chaotic at the moment as they are extending and upgrading (especially because of the commonwealth games being very soon). A few times we followed the signs to toilets and would be greeted by a makeshift wall or a dead end. While we were waiting for Katharine to arrive, I saw what could arguably be the most bizarre thing I have seen in my life. A large Indian man in his 50’s came out of the airport with his luggage trolley in tow, he stops directly in the middle of the main area of the arrivals section and starts to strip of his pants! I looked around to see if anyone else saw this, or at least thought it was as weird as I did. By the hundreds of stares and confused expressions I saw boring onto him, it seems that this is also quite different for India. So, he’s standing there in his undies, and starts taking off his thongs. He collects the clothes from the floor and opens his suitcase and starts ruffling through. Eventually, after about 3 minutes (the whole airport staring now), he finds some shiny black leather shoes and put them on, as if he’s oblivious to the fact that his footwear isn’t exactly his most immediate problem. Then eventually he got out some long pants, puts his legs in while wearing his shoes, struggles around for a bit, finished up, then walks on as if nothing had happened! Yes, I am aware that I am going to bet a lot of comments asking why I kept looking, maybe I should be a little ashamed but really, how can you pull your eyes away from such a spectacle!? Haha


Anyway, on to Agra! Monday morning we set off at 5am for the train station to catch the Taj Express to see, yep you guessed it, the Taj Mahal. We had not booked early enough to get air-conditioned seats (which we noticed, as we were walking past the cart, also had big cushy seats) so we were seated in second class. I am SO happy that there were no seats left in that A/C cart because really, we not only saved money, but we were also able to sit amongst the locals. This car had pretty hard bench like seats, and about 30 ceiling fans along the roof and was not nearly as uncomfortable as I was expecting. I learnt two things on this train ride. The first is that there is no rubbish system on trains (or anywhere in major cities it seems!) so once people finish a packet of chips, or even takeaway style meals, all rubbish goes straight out the window to pile up with the other litter dumped everywhere. The second lesson I learned came when a woman and her two children came into our cart and started begging. The woman sat banging her drum for attention while the kids did tricks with a single metal hoop. Once they finished one performance they would go around the nearest set of seats and ask for money, then they would move down the cart and start again. Begging is a profession in India that is just once huge cycle that passes through parents to their children, then from their children to their children’s children etc. It is sad that they chose to do this, and yes, many do have a choice, rather than seek jobs. The job situation is also not ideal, and by western pay standards are probably not even considered jobs, but at least they are earning a keep…. Anyway, I won’t go into detail here because I still have no learnt enough to comment. According to Katie this family on the train was not poor beggars; both the kids were the size of the children on the farm, even fatter than some of them. Katie gave both the kids a few biscuits when they approached us, which as they are trained to do, they both took immediately to their mother.




When we reached Agra we had a 2 places on our agenda for that day, the first being the Taj and the second being the Agra Red Fort. As much as I would love to go into the histories of both these places, this blog is already getting wayyyyy to long and I’m quite sure I have lost most of the readers under the age of 40! SO anyway, after a little bit of drama (as always haha) we finally made it to the Taj. As I was walking into the area where you line up for tickets, I turned around to explain to Katie that we didn’t really have monkeys in Aus (because they were everywhere there!), something hit me pretty hard and snatched the packet of biscuits I had in my hand. In the space of seconds, a monkey had jumped up on me and nicked my biccies and ran off! Haha quite a shock for me!!


What I love most about the location of the Taj, is that you can’t see it until you get into the actual gate! It is covered by big walls and trees. I had to leave my Doll Alisha (who was made for me by an elderly woman whom I visited for work at the start of this year) behind at the lockers because of the possible bomb she might have had under her bloomers. The impact of the Taj is amazing. When we rounded the corner, walked up the steps and got the first glimpse of it, it was just mind-blowing!!!! I have seen so many pictures of the Taj, but I didn’t realise how HUGE it would be! It is GIGANTIC! And what is just so incredible about it is that it is all handmade hundreds of years ago in the 1660’s!!!! The white marble is so immaculately carved, and the taj itself is such a bright white colour I never expected. I never realised that there were flower designs around most of the panels which are so striking, and actually inlaid with thousands of precious stones, so that when you put a torch to the pattern the entire flower lights us. Yes, I learnt most of my facts by tour hopping Haha. I have decided that the best way to describe the taj is to imagine the most immaculately carved white marble chess piece anyone could make, then enlarge that by a million, and there you have- The Taj Mahal!
I will let the pictures of the Agra fort speak for themselves, as it’s really the history of this structure that is so fantastic haha.



(entrance to Agra Fort)



(Me, Katharine and Katie infront of the Taj)

We left back to delhi that evening. The next day we went out shopping which was, as I’ve already said, more fun for me. We were supposed to leave the next night, but Katie needed to be at the farm for teaching, so we left that night on the bus back for Banbassa. We were delivered safely by a driver who played us 11 hours worth of Hindi pop and a conductor who liked to get a little tipsy and dance bollwood style in his seat and sometimes in the aisles. All up, a fantastic glimpse into Indian city life as well as an experience of the Taj that I will never forget!