Agra, India
I've only spent one Christmas away from home before, in South Australia five years ago. It felt nothing like the traditional festivates I'm used to, but with two friends from home visiting, a fantastic host family, a breakfast beer in the local, and an afternoon swim in the sea, it was a fantastic experience. I still love Christmas and wanted an equally great experience this time away from home. But in India, a country where only a few small pockets of people celebrate it I wasn't sure what to expect at all. In the end I decided I had a better chance of celebrating the day with fellow travellers than locals, and where in India might you have a good chance of bumping into a lot of travellers? The Taj Mahal, in the city of Agra.
Christmas Eve
Setting out from Ramnagar in the north, Agra was to be a nights train journey away with a change half way. But the plan fell apart straight away when the train left Ramnagar station two hours late. Consequently despite allowing good time for it, I'd missed the connection at New Delhi station. In the station building I was passed from pillar to post by staff in my quest to get a refund and catch the next train. On top of this, the station is renowned for being scam capital if the world, so I had one guy after the next pretending he was just being helpful then quietly trying to manipulate me to use his rickshaw, taxi, bus etc. I'm pretty sharp to these things now so quickly brushed most of them off, but it was irritating nonetheless. The next train turned out to be in a few hours time, but there was no guarantee there'd even be availability such is the demand for train seats here. I was told there was a bus leaving at that moment for Agra if I wanted it, and just pleased for a solution, went with it knowing full well I was being overcharged by three or four quid compared with everyone else for the convenience. I didn't care, there was no way I was spending Christmas in Delhi!
I've only spent one Christmas away from home before, in South Australia five years ago. It felt nothing like the traditional festivates I'm used to, but with two friends from home visiting, a fantastic host family, a breakfast beer in the local, and an afternoon swim in the sea, it was a fantastic experience. I still love Christmas and wanted an equally great experience this time away from home. But in India, a country where only a few small pockets of people celebrate it I wasn't sure what to expect at all. In the end I decided I had a better chance of celebrating the day with fellow travellers than locals, and where in India might you have a good chance of bumping into a lot of travellers? The Taj Mahal, in the city of Agra.
Christmas Eve
Setting out from Ramnagar in the north, Agra was to be a nights train journey away with a change half way. But the plan fell apart straight away when the train left Ramnagar station two hours late. Consequently despite allowing good time for it, I'd missed the connection at New Delhi station. In the station building I was passed from pillar to post by staff in my quest to get a refund and catch the next train. On top of this, the station is renowned for being scam capital if the world, so I had one guy after the next pretending he was just being helpful then quietly trying to manipulate me to use his rickshaw, taxi, bus etc. I'm pretty sharp to these things now so quickly brushed most of them off, but it was irritating nonetheless. The next train turned out to be in a few hours time, but there was no guarantee there'd even be availability such is the demand for train seats here. I was told there was a bus leaving at that moment for Agra if I wanted it, and just pleased for a solution, went with it knowing full well I was being overcharged by three or four quid compared with everyone else for the convenience. I didn't care, there was no way I was spending Christmas in Delhi!
The bus journey was a bit slow but interesting nonetheless. I couldn't get over how smoggy Delhi was, even in the nicer and more modern southern outskirts. We passed miles of construction works for a new part of the subway line, a JCB factory producing 3DX diggers, Audi and BMW dealerships, and a few 'Cafe Coffee Day's - Indians version of Starbucks. A sign by the road said 'accidents bring tears, safety being cheers' - I'll listen out for applause the next time I see any safety. I certainly didn't see any on the bus. Everywhere I've been so far it's been apparent that whilst India drives on the left officially, people have no hesitation in flaunting the law and driving the wrong way up dual carriageways as a short cut. However I didn't expect the bus I was on to do it - to allow him to get to a cafe stop on the other side of the road, instead of driving a mile or so up the road and doing a u-turn, he passed through a gap in the central reservation, and drove head on into the oncoming traffic for about quarter of a mile! People are used to such behaviour and just beeped and swerved without effort - its fair to say no-one drives on autopilot here! At 3pm I finally got to Agra - seven hours later than I should have.
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It was not all loss that day though, as my hope for some sort of Christmas celebration panned out well when I found a hotel which was both full of other travellers, and holding a Christmas Part. On the rooftop restaurant of the hotel that night, they'd laid on a buffet of different curries, and I spent the evening hanging out with a great gang, comprising couple of fellow British guys, a German Girl, a Dutch girl and a couple of Israely guys. All were traveling separately having met there that night and had great stories, but one in particular impressed me immensely, as he was on an epic cycle tour - more about that in the next blog. Being India, of course it wasn't a normal party - the staff had lit a fire in a metal tray for warmth, but saw no harm in burning cardboard and plastic bottles, leaving us all bleary eyed and choking at times. They'd also set up a disco and one of the staff played Bhangra songs all night, constantly skipping between songs he didn't like, and having the volume either very quiet or extremely, and I mean ear burstingly, loud with nothing in between. Fatboy Slim he was not, but it was very funny all the same. We finished the night watching the staff competing against each other pulling off their best dance moves, and trying to teach us a few as well with hilarious consequences.
Christmas Eve party
Christmas Day
I awoke and went to the hotel's rooftop restaurant, and and saw it for the first time less than half a mile away. I'd heard hype did nothing to dilute peoples first impressions of seeing it, and I agree completely; for seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time was a true 'wow' moment. That image I'd seen used in glossy brochures for years was actually there in front of me - and it was stunning. Reunited with some of the guys from the previous night we all admired the view and chatted away whilst having breakfast. We then walked a mile or two to have a look around Agra fort - the home of the ruling Mughal leaders in the seventeenth century, and a very grand and well preserved place, full of red sandstone and marble carvings.
Agra Fort
Christmas Lunch, very memorable
Back on another rooftop restaurant near the Taj Mahal it was time for Christmas Lunch. Roast turkey with all the trimmings was a dream too far - instead it was of course curry! Clubbing together and sharing various dishes, the meal still had that communal and happy feel and we had a great laugh. At 3pm it wasn't time to watch the Queen's Christmas message, especially as it was 9.30am at home, but instead time to go visit the Taj Mahal itself and have a proper look. I've never been quite sure of it's purpose, but learnt that it was built in 1653 as a very grand and expensive tomb for the wife of Shah Jahan, the Mughal leader at the time and took over twenty years to build using up to 20,000 labourers. The complex was packed with tourists, both Indian and foreign as Christmas Day is an official holiday in India, though with only a tiny majority being Christian it isn't really celebrated as such. Walking through the entrance gate came the next wow moment, seeing close up the perfect symmetry of the building in front of us, faced entirely in white marble with delicate colored inlays and carvings. We wandered around for a couple of hours taking it all in, joining the thousands of tourists in snapping a load of photos.
The Taj Mahal - there she is, in all her beauty
After another curry with the gang that evening, I joined up with my family back in Cornwall via the wonders of Skype, who'd just retired to the lounge at my Auntie and Uncle's place after the big roast, The video connection was pretty terrible due to the slow internet here, but it was fantastic to be part of their celebrations for an hour or two. All in all a very different, yet fantastic Christmas Day.
Boxing Day
The Christmas gang slowly started to disband in different directions. But with Eva from Holland and Roshan, a fellow Brit remaining, we went to the nearby town of Fatehpur Sikri for the day on the ever rattly local bus, and later met with Wayne who'd cycled there. This was a small town of two halves - the bustling but quite poor current town centre, and the very grand sixteenth century fort looming above. I was quite struck by how many children of various ages were begging or trying to sell stuff around the fort, but despite wanting to help, it's a bad idea to give them anything as it only encourages dependency on such behaviour and keeps them out of school. The fort itself wasn't too dissimilar to Agra fort the day before as it was built by the same Mughal leaders, and architecturally was equally as grand and impressive set upon a hilltop. Many Indian tourists were out and about, with a number of the women in brightly coloured sari's, with (temporary) henna tattoos covering their hands and feet. It was also great to spend the day out again with some great fellow travellers, something I've not had the opportunity to do for quite some time.
At Fatehpur Sikri with Roshan and Eva
Locals at Fatehpur Sikri
The day after Boxing Day
Just Eva and I remained at the hotel out of the original group, and with a few other things we both wanted to see around Agra apart from the Taj Mahal, we headed out together for the day. So many people visit the city just for the one big attraction so it was quite notable how quiet the other parts were. We walked first to the slightly run down mosque of Jama Masjid, then another large and delapadated tomb from the same era as the Taj. I'm not that much of a history buff, so the tomb itself didn't interest me much, but it was fascinating to watch a group of local farmers at work on the patch of land below by the riverbank, and cows bathing in the river. They weren't farmers as we'd think of it, but a couple of families looking after a few cows. We watched them laboriously shaping cow muck into discs to be dried out, and collecting some dried previously ready to be burnt as heating fuel. On the walk back to the road Eva spotted through a doorway, a small scale shoe factory and we asked if we could go inside to see it for a couple of minutes. The three guys were quite welcoming, and it was fascinating to see them hand crafting what seemed to be good quality shoes.
Small riverside farm making dung fuel
Shoe factory
We walked a little further on to Itimad-ud-Daulah also known as 'Baby Taj' - a tomb for one of the government ministers of the same era, and equally well crafted but even more detailed than more well known one. A rickshaw ride later through the chaotic and congested streets of Agra, we were at a cafe next door to our hotel where we ate and chatted for a few hours. Eva leads quite an interesting life in Amsterdam, working part time in a hostel, and part time on a couple of charity projects. She founded and runs foodsharing.nl - a Dutch-only website where you can advertise any surplus food you have at home that is going out of date, and donate it to locals. The interesting thing is that it's more about reducing waste than charity, thus removing the stigma sometimes associated with such schemes, and I was really impressed by her work. We had lots in common and talked for hours on all sorts of subjects, but early the next morning we were both going in different directions. So it time to say goodbye, and finally the end of the Christmas gang. I was really unsure how Christmas in India would pan out, and in the end, thanks to the great group of people I shared it with, it was way better than I could ever expect.
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