Wednesday 20th January
I’m woken at 6.40am by a wife who’s been asleep for 14 hours and is consequently bouncing around like a spring lamb. When I myself have managed to start feeling human, we meet the others for breakfast at what seems to be the only place that’s open for it. There are bars on the windows, but inside it’s quite quaint, and all this combines to give the impression of eating in a rustic country prison. They do have fantastic muesli though. Sometime later, we are on the airport bus, enjoying the exquisite delights of its air-conditioning on this sweltering day. It’s a notable journey, and events include the forcible ejection of a wildly drunk man who looks like he is going to cover the bus in vomit at any moment, the overtaking of a flatbed truck with an elephant on it, the sight of an autorickshaw carrying at least eight grown adults (three of them in the luggage rack), and the close escape from injury of a disembarking passenger who steps off the bus only to get struck by a motorbike.
At the airport, we discover that our 2pm flight is now scheduled to leave at 4pm. Passing through security I’m asked to take off my boots, and once I have them back the officer turns to me, points to a chair, and says, “Please sit here sir.” For a moment I have flashbacks to being detained and thoroughly searched when trying to cross from Argentina to Chile, and it’s as I’m thinking, “Oh no please, not again!” that he looks back at me and says with a friendly smile, “It’ll be easier to put your shoes back on if you’re sitting down.” Kochi airport only has two gates, but thankfully it has huge amounts of comfortable seating, and with our flight delayed, we install ourselves for the wait. There’s a cafe nearby, and I attempt to get a bite to eat, but the system seems designed to minimize convenience while maximizing chaos. One first has to choose one’s food from within the glass fronted cabinets, a feat which is only possible by barging into the throng assembled right in front of them. Having chosen something, and simultaneously annoyed everyone else, one then has to backtrack to the start of the queue to give the staff the order and then pay for it. The scrum really begins at the next stage, where one waits amongst the aforementioned throng of thirty other people to get the receipt looked at and then be given the food. I venture that things would be much easier were it not for the fact that whoever designed the place has done so back to front. The till is the first thing one comes to, with the food and collection point deeper within the cafe. It would therefore only be possible to do things easily if the place were empty, otherwise a massive customer-jam occurs. Having escaped with a collection of veg puffs, vadas, crisps, and water, I return to the comfy seats to find that four o’clock has now become five fifty five. The extra delay at least allows us to make a few phone calls to organize accommodation in Delhi and Agra. The plan is to get to Delhi tonight, and then leave for Agra by train tomorrow morning.
Later, and with departure now scheduled for 6pm, I brave the cafe again. Unfortunately when I check the selection, all they have is pineapple cake and chocolate chip muffins. Still, it’s now empty, so as I suspected, I can choose food, be given it, and then pay, which is considerably easier. I come away, unsurprisingly, with pineapple cake and a chocolate chip muffin, but more surprisingly, with a banana, which substitutes for my Rs5 change. Our delay seems to be due to fog in Delhi, to which the place is apparently prone at this time of year. At just before half past five, the Jetlite plane arrives and unloads its passengers. After a refreshingly short time, we are then boarded, and manage to leave the ground just before 6pm.
Oddly, despite having been in India for a fortnight, this flight north feels a lot like I’m just arriving. The North is by all accounts so radically different from the South, that it could almost be another country. All of us are, I think, gearing up for a lot more noise, commotion, hassle, and general in-your-face India.
After a brief stop in Hyderabad, we are en route to Delhi. It’s now that the real trouble begins. About forty five minutes prior to landing, an announcement informs us that Delhi airport is fogged out. Ground visibility is down to one hundred and twenty five metres. We require two hundred metres of visibility in order to land. Everything is hanging in a limbo of uncertainty for the next fifteen minutes as we wait to see if conditions in Delhi improve. I’m feeling optimistic, but the foolishness of this attitude is brought sharply home when the next announcement is made. We’re turning back to Hyderabad! Shit, shit and triple shit! I suppose it was only a matter of time until something went pear shaped, but still. It’s going to be fairly late at night by the time we get back there, and no-one really knows what provisions will be made. Will the flight be rescheduled for the morning? Will we be put up in a hotel? Will we be forced to wait around all night in the airport? What’s certain is that we won’t be seeing Delhi tonight, and every bit of delay tomorrow eats into our time in Agra; the joys of travel.
Back in Hyderabad the passengers are separated into two groups, those that started in Kochi, and those that boarded here. The baggage takes a good while to emerge, and once we have it, there’s still no information of any kind being disseminated. A large group of people are besieging the left-luggage counter where the only available official is to be found. By listening in I’m able to ascertain that the flight is rescheduled for 9am, but there’s still no word on what we are supposed to do until then. A little later we get talking to an English couple, who ask us for Rizlas. From them we learn that if we take our boarding passes to left-luggage, they’ll be exchanged for hotel vouchers. These turn out to be for the Novotel Hyderabad – breakfast, room, and transfers included. This at least is something. So it is that after further milling, we’re squashed onto a mini-bus, and whisked away into the night.
The Novotel is, by my standards at any rate, luxurious. We have to pass through metal detectors even to get into the lobby, which itself is of the grand, spacious, sweeping variety. There’s free internet on twenty inch monitors, and signs pointing to a variety of lounges, bars, restaurants and spas. Immaculately turned-out receptionists give us electronic key cards, while very professionally pretending not to notice that we look like something that was just swept up off the street, and then we make our way past the pool, into the swishiest lift I’ve seen in ages, and up to a corridor with stylish mood lighting embedded in the floor.
Our room, as one would expect, is very nice indeed. A large, flat screen TV turns on automatically when we walk in, and there is an iron, ironing board, robes, slippers, alarm clock, hairdryer, kettle, safe, three kinds of towel, five kinds of toiletries, wonderfully comfortable beds, a view of the pool, and a range of hideously overpriced drinks and snacks in the fridge. Given all this, I’m rather surprised to find a total absence of toothbrushes. Sadly, as tends to be the way with these free luxury hotel stays, we have very little time to enjoy any of it, as it’s now gone one o’clock, and we have to be up at six. We allow ourselves a very, very nice hot shower, before retiring.
Thursday 21st January
The breakfast buffet in the Novotel is big on quantity, but more modest on quality. There are four kinds of cereal, but none of them are muesli. There are croissants, but they’re cold, and there are eggs, but they take ages to arrive. More positively, there are also hash browns, pancakes, rotis, toast, good coffee, noodles, beans, potato curry, grilled tomatoes, and a host of other things, and it’s all, most importantly of all, free. With that out of the way, we are en route to the airport by about 7.40am.
Things don’t begin well. We are refused entry to the airport, until a security guard explains that we have to go to the Jetlite counter along the exterior wall, and get our used boarding passes stamped. While waiting for access, talking to a British couple who have driven an autorickshaw all the way from Nepal (?!) we learn that our 9am departure has become a 12pm departure. Pessimistic looks are exchanged, closely followed by a feeling of doomed resignation. Down at the gate, we spend the morning sitting around, wandering about, and talking to Roger and Lucy, the British couple from last night. Things get interesting at about 11.30am. Jetlite ground staff appear and are instantly surrounded by a large group of Indian passengers, who over the next few minutes become ever louder and more agitated. One old man in a white dhoti is particularly vocal, and keeps pointing emphatically at his wife, who is crying in that dramatic, wailing, hands to the sky manner often employed by Palestinian women on the news, when Israeli rockets have just done particularly unpleasant things to their houses. In the face of all this, it’s a miracle that the poor woman from Jetlite can get a word in at all, but I learn from other passengers that there is apparently still no clearance from Delhi, fogged out as it remains, and that we’ve now been put back to 1pm. This information does nothing to placate the crowds however, and such is the level of excitement, that as we await the arrival of the Jetlite supervisor, five security guards with AK47s appear, although they do little other than smirk at the chaos. It’s around this time that I’m hit with fatalism. I really cannot be bothered to find this annoying anymore, and so elect to find it comical instead. I think the same thing hits Andy at much the same time. I’m rather worried about something hitting the now present Jetlite supervisor too, although that’s more likely to be a fist. He’s trying to explain the situation, but no-one is letting him speak. I finally bully my way up to him, and in a moment of supreme Britishness, say very loudly, “Can we just let him speak please?!” The crowd momentarily quietened, he says that the plane is here, and the pilot is here, but the ground crew are stuck in Delhi, and should be leaving there at 1pm. When the mob hears this, standing under a board that still shows our departure as 1pm, the shit really hits the fan. A small, smartly-dressed Indian woman in enormous sunglasses starts swearing loudly, saying, “Why don’t you just fucking DO SOMETHING?! We’ve been reasonable, but this is 24 fucking hours! You can’t get a fucking plane to Delhi in 24 hours!” Above and beyond the delay, what seems to be annoying most people is the utter lack of information, or more accurately the active disinformation. Aside from displaying a 1pm departure when that obviously isn’t true, I myself was told by a member of ground staff at 11.20, with a smile, that we were still on for a midday departure. If they had just been honest, I think there would’ve been a lot less frustration. Eventually, when our ETD has changed to 15.00, the Jetlite manager arrives. He does a much better job of apologizing, and explains that the flight crew we had yesterday have exhausted their working time allotment, so a new crew from Delhi have to be flown here before we can leave, and they can’t take off, partly due to fog, and partly due to Delhi’s airspace being closed for jets practicing for the 26th January Republic Day celebrations. We have two options – either the aviation authority can allow yesterday’s crew to work extra hours beyond regulations, in which case we’ll be leaving very soon, or we have to wait for the Delhi crew to arrive, in which case we’ll be leaving somewhere between three and four o’clock. As he’s leaving, Roger sidles up to the manager and says, “Look, I understand the situation, and I realise it’s not your fault, but my wife is very stressed about all this, so we’d really appreciate it if you could organize a few free beers for us and our friends.” gesturing towards the four of us. The manager, probably relieved to be dealing with someone who isn’t shouting at him, responds immediately, “Yes of course sir, please follow me.” He escorts us upstairs to a cafe/bar called Indian Paradise, and we’re all given complimentary pints. Nice work Roger!
While we’re drinking, announcements request passengers from various other flights to proceed to Indian Paradise for a complimentary lunch, and soon the place is thronging, as the departure boards show an unbroken line of delays. Ours becomes 15.30, which can only mean the aviation authority has not granted permission for the crew to exceed their hours. Having consumed our lunch, and a few more drinks, we get talking to a German guy called Sebastian, who is on a tech internship in India, and trying to go home. What with him and various Indians, we’re building up quite a community, and a sort of Dunkirk spirit settles over Indian Paradise, which is about the most inappropriate name for the place in light of what’s going on.
Back at the gate at about quarter past three, we’re suddenly mobilised, and board buses to the long-awaited plane. Bizarrely, I notice that we do indeed have the same flight crew we had last night. What this means is anyone’s guess, but the most likely explanation is that Jetlite were feeding us even more bullshit earlier. I pass much of the flight, including take-off in slumber, and then a lovely sunset gives way to dusk, so that it’s dark when we finally touch down at Indira Ghandi International airport, Delhi, to the sound of applause.
I’m ripped off within ten minutes of arrival, and if that’s not bad enough, the perpetrator is a policeman. It happens when I go to arrange a pre-paid taxi at the police taxi booth. Andy hands me a Rs500 note, and after queuing for a while, I hand it over to the guy behind the counter. Stupidly, I’m not paying much attention, and he takes what I give him then tells me I only gave him Rs100, holding a note out for me to see. Thinking, no doubt through tiredness, that I must’ve made a mistake, I look for the Rs500, but can’t find it, so give him the balance. The only explanation is that he switched them speedily. Oh well, a lesson learned. I’ll have to reimburse Andy later. Stuff like that happens, but it’s annoying to be caught out, especially by a supposed officer of the law. Anyway, having specified that we have four people and four large bags, we go out to the car park, locate taxi position No.5, and find a vehicle slightly larger than a Mini waiting there. The sheer ridiculousness of this, combined with the last twenty four hours, causes all of us to laugh hysterically, but as it turns out, this isn’t our vehicle. A minivan arrives a few minutes later. I get in the front, and notice that I have a seatbelt that would just as likely cut me in two as save me, and a seat that appears to be hinged at the base, such that any acceleration has me tipping backwards alarmingly.
Delhi is indeed fog-bound, although just as much of the thick soup we pass through is probably smog, and it makes Korea’s annual Yellow Dust look like crisp, Alpine air. The traffic is absolutely insane, and to ride a motorbike, or god forbid a bicycle in this city seems utter suicide. Confusingly, we’ve been on the road for about forty five minutes, but as yet haven’t seen anything of the city, only endless highways, and construction hoardings shrouded in darkness. Where is Delhi? We hit it soon enough, and all of a sudden, in a chaotic street straight out of the third world, I notice a shop address – Main Bazaar. This is Paharganj, the backpackers’ ghetto, and this is where we’re staying. We disembark into a scene unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s part Cairo, part Nairobi, and as Jung-Ok very astutely points out, part Gotham, but a lot more intense than any of them. The narrow street seethes with locals, travellers, cars, rickshaws, motorbikes, and cows, but it has an edge that nowhere else in India has had so far. The thick fog helps to give the place a desperate, sunken air, and the people, many wrapped in blankets or cloaks, and huddled round small fires at the roadside, remind me of those from Terminator’s post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Dogs roam the piles of litter, and the nose is assaulted by a pungent mix of exhaust fumes, incense, urine, food, and things indescribable. The street is lined with clothes shops, cheap (and frequently nasty) hotels, internet cafes, travel agents, restaurants, and hole-in-the-wall convenience stores, but there’s almost nothing that seems either attractive or inviting. Off Main Bazaar are numerous dark, winding, and almost without exception smelly alleyways, similarly rammed with every conceivable business venture, and all overhung with huge, hazardous bunches of electrical wiring that look like sloppily-built stork’s nests suspended from the walls. We realise we’ve passed Ghali Chandi Wali, the alley down which the Spot Hotel where we’ve reserved rooms is located, so backtrack to find it. It’s only now, surprisingly since we are all carrying packs, that someone latches onto us. He’s an old man with a scarf wrapped vertically around his head. He begins with the usual, “Room? Room? I know good room.” and when we turn up Ghali Chandi Wali he switches to, “Up here no good, all full, no good.” Even when we stop outside the hotel, he persists with, “Here full.” Ten out of ten for effort I suppose.
The Spot Hotel has a friendly reception that requires nothing of us for now. Up three flights of stairs we find rooms 33 and 36. They are, well, rat-infested shit holes would be uncharitable, but room 36 does have pillows that have turned dark grey where once I suspect they were white, and sheets that look like they’ve survived several orgies and one or two deaths. The mattresses have an ill-favoured dampness of the like you’d expect in a house that had been derelict for a couple of months, and there’s a cockroach in the bathroom, although only one. Still, we’re in Delhi, finally, and all too tired to bother finding another hotel, so this will have to do. It’s only for tonight anyway.
The next priority is food and a beer. Jung-Ok has her heart set on Korean food, having been existing on Indian for the last two weeks, and it turns out there’s one round the corner. It’s on the top floor of a grubby looking building (a description that could to be fair, apply to every building in Paharganj) but really doesn’t look like the kind of place one would want to eat anything, and so Jung-Ok goes off in search of Koreans for a recommendation. I find her talking to two guys, so walk up and say, “Annyeonghaseyo.” They respond, then look at me, then do a double-take, then utter sounds of shock and surprise. Recovered from their unexpected brush with a Korean-speaking foreigner, they lead us a few alleys away, telling us as we walk that they saw an elephant walking up Ghali Chandi Wali yesterday (which would certainly have been something to see, especially as the alley is little wider than a car), then off to the left past puddles of urine and piles of things I won’t trouble you with, and point us to a stairwell running up through a dank, dirty building with crumbling paint and the general look of a place that in any other country you’d run a mile from rather than eat in. However, Paharganj has a surprise up its sleeve. On the 3rd floor we emerge into a cozy, prettily lit restaurant that reminds me of the traditional rice wine bars in Seoul. The clientele is, unsurprisingly, mostly Korean, but there are a few westerners here and there too. While we’re waiting for the food, we get talking to a Korean guy at the next table, who turns out to be an author living and working in India. He is quite the doom monger, giving us reams of information about cancelled trains, delays, fog, and general inconvenience. He maintains that the only train to Agra likely to run on time tomorrow, is the 6.15am, and that to get tickets we’ll need to be there at about four thirty. Well, so much for a good night’s sleep. Anyhow, the food is good and authentic, and we enjoy bibimbap, japchae, and gimchijjigae, before returning to the hotel to consider options.
At reception, we’re told the 6.15am is an express, which has to be pre-booked, but I think that can be done up to thirty minutes before departure, so shouldn’t be a problem if there are still seats available. Other than that there’s a local train (no berths or AC or anything, and stops everywhere) at 5.30 from New Delhi Train Station just around the corner, or a 7.10 from Nizamuddin, which is further away. Any or all of these will of course be liable to fog delays. It seems conceivable that we could go tonight to secure tickets, rather than bugger around in the morning, so we make for New Delhi Train Station (from here on referred to as NDTS), at the end of Main Bazaar. Paharganj has, at this late hour, assumed even more of a post-apocalyptic atmosphere, as there are fewer people on the streets, and many of them are of the late night shambling variety. Fortunately it’s only about two hundred yards to NTDS.
Wow. I don’t even know where to start with NDTS. Whether it’s because of the fog, or whether it’s entirely normal I cannot say, but the floor of the station is a sea of sleeping people wrapped in blankets, with collections of huge bags that seem like they could contain their entire lives. It looks like something from a refugee crisis. There are also large numbers of shifty-looking folk loitering around. The first set of ticket counters are unintelligible, with vast queues, particularly for the ‘Enquiries’ desk. We find the Tourist Bureau, but it closed at 8pm. At another set of counters, which we can only reach by picking our way through the slumbering masses, we are at least able to establish that we cannot buy tickets for the local trains tonight, so we’ve no option but to come back at stupid o’clock tomorrow. It’s now that a loiterer approaches and tries to convince us to go across the road to the, “Emergency Tourist Bureau” but we suspect that’s horseshit, so ignore him. Back at the hotel, we remove the mattresses, and sleep on the nasty blankets, with our sleeping bag liners, fully clothed. I’m not letting any part of my skin touch that bed.
Friday 22nd January
Up at 3.50am, and out by 4.15, whereupon I hand back my room key with the caveat that if things don’t work out, we’ll be back. Paharganj is empty, and shrouded in thick mist/smog/fog. The only life is a few other backpackers, some dogs scrapping over bits of rubbish, and the occasional shambling street shadow. Across the gauntlet of taxi and rickshaw drivers, NDTS is no less chaotic at 4.20am than it was at 10.30 last night, when we were told that this morning we should go to ticket window no.62. When we find window 62, it is of course closed, and so begins a station saga that outclasses anything I’ve experienced before. A few people direct us upstairs to the tourist bureau, but we know that’s shut until 8am. Nonetheless, we take a peek up there, and run into a guy who appears to be a station official. He mentions the emergency tourist bureau across the street, which we are pretty sure is a hustle of some kind, but since we’re not getting anywhere in the station, we indulge him, and head over there. It’s instantly apparent that this place is nothing but a travel agent’s, with a sign outside that says ‘Government Ticket Sales’ hung in an effort to make it seem official, and lo and behold, as soon as we sit down in there, the bullshit begins to flow. I mention the 6.15 train, and he says that we had to have booked 72 hours in advance, which I know isn’t true. He then starts talking about tourist quotas, and having apparently made a phone call, claims that we are nos. 27, 28, 29 and 30 on the waiting list. His solution is for us to buy rail passes that cost $57 each. It’s at this point that I stand up and walk out. I’m sure a lot of people must fall for all this, but he’s not going to get any joy from us.
Back in NDTS we decide to get tickets for the 5.30am local train. As we approach the ticket windows, a number of guys, one in particular, start trying to tell us that as we are foreign, we can’t buy tickets for the local train! What he stands to gain from spinning such a pitifully obvious crock of shit I cannot fathom. Perhaps he would try to drag us back across the street again. It’s probably a combination of it being very early, me being very tired, us not seeming to be able to get anywhere, and being sick of every single person we speak to lying to us, but this guy really gets on my nerves. I say to him in a raised voice, “Well we’ll see what the ticket officer says shall we?!” Of course, there’s absolutely no problem with us buying tickets, and as I pass the guy again I wave them at him and say in a manner somewhere between sarcastic and scornful, “Ooh look! I could buy tickets after all!” Unfortunately the ticket officer was unable to tell me which platform the train leaves from, so we have to join the long, chaotic queue at the Enquiries window to establish that it’s platform three. Once there, there’s no sign of a train, or indeed of any activity of any kind. Another fifteen minutes in the Enquiries queue, and we’re told it’s delayed by two hours. Of course, they couldn’t have told me that when I asked what platform it left from.
We go back to the hotel, and have to wake up the guys at reception to get let in. There’s a brief protestation that we already checked-out, but I put that to bed with very short shrift. After an hour or so of sleep, we emerge again at about quarter past seven. The 7.30 departure of the 5.30 train has now become 8.30. We go in search of a bite to eat, but in the grubby chaos that surrounds NDTS the street food looks far too dodgy to trust, so we end up with a stopgap of a small bunch of bananas from a wooden cart. The tourist bureau in the station has now opened, and a woman there tells us that while she has no information whatsoever about the 5.30 train, the Bhopal-Shatabdi Express (from 6.15) is delayed until 11am, and has forty seats available. It goes without saying that we can’t buy tickets for it here though, because that would be far too easy. No, we can only get them downstairs at windows 62, 63, or 64. As we’re leaving we run into a grubby, unwashed, unshaven young Russian guy with a filthy blanket over his shoulders. He says something about tickets, but I can’t make it out. I can only assume from the look of him that he’s homeless, and we see him loitering or wandering around a few more times later. He’s obviously a Delhi casualty, although I daren’t think what kind of crap has to befall you to end up lost and destitute at New Delhi Train Station.
Downstairs once more Andy and I join the rabble waiting at the ticket windows. I say rabble, because this is only a queue in the very loosest sense of the word. We don’t have the all important little form on which one fills in the details of the train, destination, passenger names and so forth, but Andy finds an un-used one on the floor. As we begin filling it in, a guy in a nearby queue obviously takes pity on us, and hands us a spare one. Just as we’re getting close to the front the window closes, so we join the next line instead. A woman is there setting up the window for operation, but she’s doing it slowly…interminably slowly. When she’s finally ready, having disappeared for five minutes to replace the keyboard, Andy and I just manage to fend off the guy behind us who keeps trying to worm his way past. He’s met with a wide blockade of shoulders. The woman behind the counter gets as far as starting to enter our names (I’m A.Cates) but then gets up and walks off, spending ten minutes talking to one of her co-workers. Mr.Pushy is all the while still trying to get past us, but by this time we’re pretty much out of patience, and keep him back even more roughly than he’s trying to push forward. When she returns, the woman sits there right in front of us, and the ever-growing, chaotic line behind, ignoring us completely and processing a pile of refunds for five minutes. Eventually she gets back to entering our names, but does two of them and then leaves again. Andy and I can do no more than look at each other with a combination of disbelief and resignation; how can this be so hard?! When finally all our information is entered (I’m now down as Mr A.Ndrew) we pay, and get our tickets. I ask if I can get a refund on the local train tickets, and she says flatly without even looking at me, “No.” So, after almost five hours of buggering around, we have tickets to Agra, for today. Now all that remains is for the bloody train to actually leave at some point. We can only hope that the 11am departure doesn’t become 12pm, 1pm, or something even worse.
Outside, we sit on a bench to unwind. As maddening at the last five hours have been, we have at least emerged victorious, and no-one lost it or blew their top. NDTS did not get the better of us. Close, I’ll admit, but it didn’t. Nearby a line of TV trucks with large satellite dishes on their roofs have gathered. I assume they are here to cover the delays and transport disruption. They’ll not have far to look – almost everything is cancelled, or at least delayed, in some cases by up to twelve hours. We’ve just over two until our train is due to leave, and with nothing inside us but a few small bananas, we head back through the mist into Paharganj, and the Everest Cafe and Bakery, a tiny little place hidden away down an alley. Over set breakfasts and two coffees each we take a look at the morning papers. The big news is the fog. It’s not just in Delhi as I’d imagined, it actually stretches right across Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and is the worst for seven years. This explains our troubles. As of today there have been fifteen successive days of delays. Over twenty flights have been cancelled, and two hundred have been disrupted. So, we had the worst snow for forty years in Seoul, and now the worst fog for seven years in Delhi. What’s next, the worst plague of locusts for a decade in Kathmandu?
Outside the cafe, having utilized a toilet in the alley, that could accurately be described as the ‘Black Hole of Delhi’, we’re about to leave when Andy suddenly slips on some stone steps and cracks his back hard against the edge of one of them. It obviously hurt, but thankfully it doesn’t seem too serious. I have apparently passed on the pain baton.
Another walk back to NDTS (we seem to have done nothing but yo-yo between there and Paharganj ever since 4.15 this morning) and thankfully the boards are still showing the Bhopal-Shatabdi Express leaving at 11 o’clock. It actually pulls into platform one a few minutes early, and despite the fact that I’m placed in a separate carriage from the others, the feeling on boarding is one of great relief. As luck would have it, the train seems to have a lot of empty seats, so as we’re making slow progress through what I suspect would be the suburbs of Delhi were they not totally obscured by fog, Jung-Ok comes over to tell me that there’s space where they are all sitting. When I get there, she’s already befriended a pair of Korean guys, and the soju is flowing. It’s all they seem to have in their bags actually. The sun finally starts to break through the swirling mists some four hours into the supposedly two hour journey, about the same time as Jung-Ok starts to break through sobriety. Agra still lies fifty five kilometres away, so if our speed doesn’t improve it may well be dark by the time we get there. Not that it really matters, as there’s not much we could achieve today anyway – the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays.
I’m amused to notice when I use the train toilet, that it consists of a pipe leading straight to the tracks. At the right angle one can see the ground whizzing by through it. This would explain the frequent appearance of turds on the line at stations. Speaking of stations, we peer hopefully through the windows every time we approach one, in the hope that it will be Agra Cantonment, but in the end we have to wait until 4pm for that privilege. The sun is lowering in the sky when finally we reach our destination.
Having fought our way through a sea of people, we organize a pre-paid taxi to take us the nine kilometres to Taj Ganj, an area close to the Taj Mahal, and riddled with hotels. Agra is bustling, but on a small, friendly scale. It’s also illuminated in a warm, afternoon light, and seems, after the effort of getting here, to be a significant improvement on Delhi. Taj Ganj itself is a network of narrow streets, some more dust than asphalt, with a population that seems to consist of as many animals as it does people. One can barely walk five metres without running into a cow, a dog, or a goat. At the Raj Hotel we’re welcomed warmly and shown to rooms that while clean and adequate, do leave a little to be desired on the aesthetic front. Ours for example is almost entirely a vivid shade of green, and that includes the bedding. For now though, the rooms are the last place we want to be. One of the reasons we chose this hotel was for its Taj views, and with a couple of hours of light left, we make straight for the roof terrace with a few beers.
And there it is – the Taj Mahal, or at least the left-hand third of it. Most of what has often been called ‘The most beautiful building in the world’ is hidden behind the enormous expanse of its South Gate, which itself is an impressive and highly attractive piece of Mughal style, marble architecture, complete with arches, a crenellated roof, two large minarets, and vast amounts of calligraphy. Even with this partial view, the Taj is nothing short of sublime. We’re about five hundred metres away from it here, and it sits, silent and serene in the early evening haze. It’s hard to believe, especially in light of our journey here, which started to go wrong almost two thousand kilometres ago in Kerala, that I’m finally looking at it with my own eyes. I think all four of us feel the same way, and as we gaze at it, we share a very happy toast to being in Agra, and to the Taj Mahal. We made it, despite the fog.
The Taj is by no means the only point of interest that can be observed from the Raj Hotel’s roof terrace. On a neighbouring building, three small children who’ve noticed us looking at them, keep up an almost unbroken salvo of, “Hello hello hello!” for a good fifteen minutes until their mother says something that I assume approximates to, “Will you three please shut up?!” Indeed Agra seems to be a city where as much of life is conducted on the rooftops as it is on the streets. Everywhere one looks there are kids playing, women hanging laundry, monkeys scampering (and people trying to chase them away), and men exercising flocks of pigeons that wheel and turn in the light of the setting sun. To set all this off perfectly, the call to prayer begins, and is soon echoing from what sounds like about twenty different mosques. It’s one of the loudest I’ve heard actually, rivalling even Cairo in volume and intensity. As dusk nears, the mosquitoes come out to play, and the temperature drops to what can officially be classified as chilly. Jung-Ok decides she doesn’t want to eat, so stays in the room while the three of us head over to the nearby Shanti Lodge rooftop restaurant. It’s only round the corner, but that’s far enough for us to have to field countless approaches offering us cigarettes, malabar Taj Mahals, rickshaws, taxis, and hotel rooms. Add to this the scores of dogs, which here as everywhere else are either eating, sleeping, fighting or shagging, and then the bicycles, the auto-rickshaws, the cars, and the livestock, and even the shortest walk in Taj Ganj is an intense assault on all the senses, smell in particular regrettably.
The tables and chairs at the Shanti Lodge are liberally coated with condensation, such is the evening’s chill. There are also a number of power cuts even before we’ve ordered. They vary greatly in duration, so when one is plunged into darkness it may be for two seconds, fifteen seconds, or five minutes. The outages also seem to affect only one or two buildings at a time, so when the Shanti is on, the Raj may be off, or another building, or another. An interesting game could probably be devised based on betting which building will go off next and for how long. I order a vegetable korma, but by the first mouthful I know I probably shouldn’t eat it. It just tastes wrong somehow, and I have suspicions that it’s going to do unpleasant things to me, but I’m hungry, so I put about two thirds of it down, along with the very pleasant surprise that is the kabuli Naan, which turns out to be what I would call a peshwari, the first I’ve had on the sub-continent. Due to the cold, we don’t hang around after dinner, although we are at the Shanti long enough to have a bizarre, amusing, and almost certainly fatigue-inspired conversation about travelling round India on a skateboard pulled by rabid dogs. Where any of this comes from I cannot begin to say.
Back at the Raj, I knock on our door and get no reply. Assuming Jung-Ok is asleep I knock harder and for longer, but this yields similar results. She seems to have gone out. A confusing and almost entirely unhelpful conversation with the staff at reception reveals that while they have no idea if she has or hasn’t (I’m not entirely convinced they even know who I’m talking about), they are at least certain that she hasn’t left the key. I’m therefore locked out, with no idea where my wife has gone, or why, or when, or how long she’s going to be, or even if she’s ok. I was rather looking forward to going to bed, but now it seems that Andy and I are going to have to launch a search party, without even the faintest idea of where to begin. We’re just getting ready to leave, when much to my relief, a very apologetic Jung-Ok returns. She’d apparently got hungry after all, and went to a cafe thinking we’d be out for much longer than we were. I’m just glad she’s alright.
Saturday 23rd January
Oh dear. I was right that I shouldn’t have eaten the korma. I was up twice in the night with diarrhoea, and more worryingly I have an acidic, nauseous feeling that culminates in my throwing up violently three times in the early morning. I take some medicine, but as I can’t even hold a gulp of water down, that’s out as soon as it’s in. I feel abominably awful. While the others go for breakfast, I try to hide in an internet cafe, but even with the aptly-named ‘Vomistop’ tablets I buy from a hole-in-the-wall pharmacy, it’s all I can do to stop myself being sick. I make for the Raj, where we’ve stored our bags for the day, and go to use their toilet, but when I get there it’s blocked, backed-up, and absolutely foul. Still, I’ve no choice, and along with more diarrhoea, the Vomistop are ejected too. I go up to the roof for some air, and notice that the Taj isn’t even visible this morning. More fog. Waiting outside the cafe where the others are eating, I try desperately to fight off the urge to throw up again. India is not a country in which to feel nauseous. Unpleasant stimulations are everywhere, and inescapable. If it’s not the endless noise of honking horns, it’s the sight of an open drain, or the smell of smoke, exhaust fumes, cows, street food, a dung-encrusted goat, or puddles of urine. Nowhere is quiet, nowhere is calm, nowhere is safe. When all you want is silence, and an absolute absence of sensory input, there is nowhere to hide. I’ve got Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal to see today! Please let this wear off soon.
We get a rickshaw to the fort once the mist has lifted a little, and the journey makes me feel slightly better. By the time we arrive I’m feeling human enough to keep a few mouthfuls of water down. I now have stomach cramps, but that’s considerably better than wanting to throw up. The first thing one sees on arrival at Agra Fort, are the imposing, seventy foot high, red sandstone walls, their ramparts punctuated by huge circular bastions. They flank a large moat, crossed on a wide stone walkway that leads to the Amar Singh Gate. Agra does massive gates very well, and this one, while perhaps less ornate than the south gate of the Taj, is every bit as grand, and clearly designed more for the practical purposes of a fort, than for the aesthetic purposes of a mausoleum. Agra Fort was originally built in the 11th century, and passed through numerous powers, and numerous additions and renovations, until reaching its present state under Shah Jahan in the 16th century. Many of the buildings within the fort were destroyed and rebuilt by Shah Jahan, who evidently had something of a penchant for white marble (it was he who commissioned the Taj Mahal). I love Mughal architecture, and that inside Agra fort is gorgeous. Open plan, arched pavilions with vaulted walkways lie amidst ornamental gardens, and on the higher levels are ornate minarets, and latticed windows set into white marble walls with inlaid calligraphy. It’s the kind of place that would serve as an ideal backdrop for the filming of a period Indian epic. A few peacocks calling romantically would set the whole thing off perfectly. Spoiling all this regrettably, is my delicate condition. I still feel nasty, and I have no fuel in me, so I’m exhausted. Casually strolling the grounds has me feeling like I’ve run a marathon. I’m not alone in my suffering either, as Andy’s back is still playing up from that little spill in Delhi yesterday. We must look like a pair of utter cads actually, because Odie is carrying both of their bags, and Jung-Ok is carrying both of ours. Still, she’s enjoying herself, particularly when she gets an opportunity to feed some of the chipmunks that scamper around the place in vast numbers. Having spent much of the morning looking around in mixed amounts of discomfort, we return to the main gate, and here witness a spectacle of decidedly more modest scale. A number of ants are busily dragging, and in some cases lifting, bodily, the carcasses of dead bees, which are many times larger than themselves. Ants never fail to amaze me, not only for their brute strength, and the levels of communication and organization they are able to achieve with brains the size of a grain of sand, but also for the fact that they’ve been getting on with it largely unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Evolution recognizes when it’s onto a good thing.
Back in Agra, we go for lunch at a rooftop restaurant (it should go without saying that this isn’t the Shanti Lodge). I still can’t face food, literally, so I spend this time looking out over the balcony, and doing my best to neither glimpse nor smell what the others are eating. It’s as much as I can do to cope with a glass of mint tea. Jung-Ok also prepares a bottle of sugar water for me, which helps to boost my energy levels slightly. I could still happily fall asleep, but at least the people watching acts as a distraction, and my condition isn’t absolutely ruining things as it was a few hours ago. Another visit to the conveniences, while not pleasant, confirms that my system is doing its level best to purge whatever is in me that it doesn’t like. The stomach cramps aren’t getting any worse, so I allow myself to hope that the worst is over.
With lunch completed, or completely avoided in my case, there’s no point delaying what we’ve all come here to see, so we make for the south gate. I find it quite surreal, as I have in the moments prior to entering other iconic sites such as Machu Picchu and the Pyramids, and to think that I am mere minutes away from seeing the Taj Mahal in all its glory is a reality hard to comprehend. One prepares for things like this for so long, that it’s a bizarre sensation when they are very nearly right before the eyes. Our tickets come with a complimentary bottle of water and a pair of shoe covers (of which more later). We then join the gender-segregated queues for admission. Gaining access to the Taj Mahal involves passing through a metal detector, as well as being searched and frisked, and while Andy and I make it through, Odie is sent back for having tobacco, while Jung-Ok is sent back for having a mini-tripod. They dump them back at the Raj and return a few minutes later. It seems actually, that there are very few things one is allowed to take in. The prohibited list includes: “Arms, ammunitions, fire, smoking items, tobacco products, liquor, food, chewing gum, headphones, knives, wire, mobile charger, electric goods (except video camera) such as Tripods, iPods and similar MP3 and music players” Large bags and books are also frowned upon. I regard it as a small personal triumph that my MP3 player makes it through unquestioned, as I’d been hoping to listen to some fitting music in such an atmospheric place. Once through the gate, we pass under a final arch, and as the full splendor of the Taj greets us from the opposite end of the long, ornamental path, we find ourselves in a veritable scrum, composed of a few hundred people looking for the ideal spot from which to take that ‘My First View of the Taj Mahal’ photo. Despite this chaos, the white marble mausoleum before which everyone poses, loses none of its serene beauty; and it is truly beautiful. It seems almost impermeable to everything that goes on around it. I won’t waste time describing something that is familiar to everyone, except to say that it is certainly the most sublime piece of architecture I have ever seen, and as a testament to love, it expresses more than any song, poem, or words could ever do. This, and the simple reality of being in front of something so iconic, makes the whole experience quite moving, even if one does have to enjoy the moment being bustled by everyone else who’s being moved at the same time. We make our way out of the scrum, and down the path through the gardens. The ornamental ponds, sadly, are empty today, but there’s quite enough spectacle elsewhere to ensure that nothing is spoilt by the simple lack of water. The gardens themselves are immaculate, and are without doubt the cleanest place I’ve seen in India; there is not the merest speck of litter to be found anywhere.
Shah Jahan, heartbroken at the death of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631, giving birth to their fourteenth child, had the Taj built as her mausoleum. Construction began in 1632, and was completed in 1648. He described it thus:
Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.
It’s rather sad to consider that after being imprisoned in Agra Fort by his own son, Shah Jahan spent the last years of his life able only to gaze out at a distance on what he’d created.
For us to any get closer than gazing from a distance, and to actually set foot on the white marble of the Taj itself, we have to either remove our shoes or don the aforementioned white paper shoe covers. Having watched Slumdog Millionaire, specifically the scene in which the young urchins steal people’s shoes, we elect to go for the covers. They may (no, not may – do) look ridiculous, but at least we’re not alone. A people jam of epic proportions, composed mainly of those sporting the same white, elasticated shoe adornments, is working its way slowly up the staircase that leads from ground level to the plinth on which the Taj stands. When finally we make it there ourselves, we are confronted by an enormous queue, that snakes around three sides of the building, of those waiting to get inside to the tombs themselves. I suspect everyone else knows, as we do, that the actual burial places of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan are underground and inaccessible, but it really doesn’t matter; everyone is queuing simply to get into the Taj Mahal. Jung-Ok and I manage to jump the line in spectacular fashion, due to the fact that Andy and Odie are already in it, and it’s fairly fast-moving in any case. Nonetheless, and with a touch of hypocrisy that I don’t honestly feel bad about, I am brusque in dealing with an Indian man who tries to push in front of us. It’s not like he even has any friends in the queue!
The mausoleum itself, while intricately beautiful, cool, and potentially a haven of peace and reflection, is in reality a crowded, noisy, cattle train of a place, in which we shuffle awkwardly round the faux tombs with about five hundred other people. It’s rather a relief to get out in all honesty. Back outside, I’m once again overtaken by exhaustion, and go to lie down on a bench. It proves to be a lovely interlude; Jung-Ok and I recline, listening to a few chilled, atmospheric tunes, while watching the sun gather itself for dusk. We’re hoping for a romantic sunset that will illuminate the Taj in a deep red glow, but unfortunately, there’s a little too much haze and cloud for that.
We leave the Taj Mahal just after dusk, turning to bid it a last farewell. It is a building of supreme beauty, and one that was well worth the hassles of Delhi to reach. I will not forget this afternoon.
Passing a goat with a sweater on, we return briefly to the Raj, before heading to the Taj Café, where we spend the remainder of the evening awaiting our late night train to Varanasi. My system has recovered to the extent that I now feel able to deal with simple, bland food, and so order some French fries, and a hot chocolate to stave off the evening’s chill. As the hours go by we are forced occasionally to make additional orders, simply to appease the owner, but in reality, all of us are very tired, and really desire only our beds on the sleeper train, and thirteen hours of sleep and utter inactivity. Indeed, nearing the end of our vigil, all conversation dies, to be replaced by sighs, blank stares, and exhausted expressions.
Nearing 10pm, we rouse ourselves, gather our stuff, and engage two auto-rickshaws to the station. When we arrive, we find it full of slumbering people wrapped in blankets. It’s very reminiscent of NDTS, albeit smaller and considerably less shabby. In the main hall, we scan the boards for information, and it’s now that the killer blow is mercilessly delivered. Our 11.30pm departure on train No.3240, is now scheduled for 3.30am. It’s now 10.37pm, which means five hours in Agra Cantonment Station. We are all gutted, as evidenced by the audible groans that signal sad resignation at the tragically predictable delay. We try to talk to someone behind the counter for further information, but there’s no-one there, and the hand-written board behind the desks shows our train leaving at 4am, so no real encouragement is to be found. We walk dejectedly onto the platform, where I spy a sign for ‘Retiring Rooms’. I’m loathed to spend five hours where we are, so any other prospect seems appealing. Following the signs upstairs to the second floor, which smells conspicuously of stale urine, we find a number of doors. In one, is a small Indian woman, who can best be described as Retiring Room Hag, or possibly, in light of what occurs, Mattress Mafiosa. She speaks no English, but luckily there’s an Indian guy here who’s not only looking for a room, but is also booked on the Varanasi train, and he translates. Despite the board, which states very clearly that it costs Rs 350 for a double room, and Rs90 for a bed in a dorm, the old woman, with her many conspicuously missing teeth and expression of permanent disdain, demands Rs200 each, per bed, in a dorm. She shows us to the room, which is surprisingly clean, and while I am exhausted to the extent that I really don’t care how much I have to pay for the opportunity to get a few hours of sleep, Andy really isn’t happy about being shafted. Jung-Ok asks if we can put two people in a bed, and thereby save money, but when the guy translates, the woman is having none of it. She leaves. He insists, while sorting out his blankets, that she’ll be back, and that she’ll agree. The reality is that these beds should be sorted out through the station master, but the old woman is circumventing proper procedures in order to make some money for herself. Ten minutes later she has still not returned, so I go to seek her out. I find her in the blanket room, smoking a cigarette. When finally she returns to the dorm, she comes bearing blankets, begrudging agreement, several looks of death, and no good grace whatsoever. Our translator, proved correct, suggests we lock the door so that no-one else can get in and disturb us. We do so, and with great relief, settle down for a few brief hours of rest. I sleep fitfully, but quite well considering the loud, grating tannoy announcements from outside that sound like Chinese propaganda recordings; a high-pitched, unintelligible female voice, shrieking out the same information over and over again. At 3am we wake up, and make our way to the platform, where, fifteen minutes later, despite a few worrying announcements about trains being diverted to Agra Fort Station, the long-awaited 3240 Express finally pulls in.
It’s chaos within. All of the compartments are already curtained off, and full of sleeping people, and the narrow aisles are full of those, like us, trying to locate their berths while humping their luggage around. When we finally locate our beds, a long, awkward, and uncomfortable mission ensues, as we get ourselves and our stuff sorted out in the dark, and in very limited space. Eventually, I am in my bunk, with no need to move, or achieve anything other than sleep. The train rocks me gently into slumber, and all being well, Varanasi is only thirteen hours away.
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