Agra, India

Home of the Taj Mahal,

 

 Agra - the view from my real hotel roof.

 

Well I didn't leave Varanasi when I hoped to, I still hadn't (haven't) managed to beat off the bug that has been ailing me for many weeks, so I hung around resting. 

 

   early morning by the Ganges - Varanasi

Due to the time I lost in Varanasi I have also revised my India intentions and will now cycle west - yes West - to Agra, then Jaipur and on to Delhi  (health permitting -  instead of heading down to Chennai).   This of course means I'll be visiting the India Tourist haunts of the Taj Mahal and Rajastan. I'll be glad to have seen these places, but sad that I missed going south.

 

The roads in Uttar Pradesh have continued to be heaps better than those in Bihar were, much to my relief.  National Highway 2 is even divided, smooth and with a nice shoulder for quite long lengths in places.

 I can't believe it, a real highway  - Uttar Pradesh

 

For my last few camps before Agra I've taken to camping in service stations or beside police posts.  The advantage being that you don't have people standing staring at you for hours on end.   You still have a continual audience but at least they move on.   If it's a petrol station they are on their way to somewhere, and if it's a police post they tend not to hang around endlessly.   I had read of other people camping at police stations for security, I don't feel it as a security issue just a peace of mind and privacy one.    Of course, once you retire into the tent and do up the zip they get bored and disappear reasonably quickly, but as long as you are visible (even as a shape through a fly screen, they will stay and stare) .   It is different to the other countries I've passed through. Those that have read my Iran posts will know I commented about the crowds gathering around and saying I expect the same or more of it in India - but in Iran the crowd gathered around were, happy, smiling and eager to talk or communicate with you saying "hello tourist" or any other English they might have known ("what's your name", "I love you").  Here in India the crowd gathers around totally silently, with expressionless faces and they stand there 5 metres away and just stare for hours (literally) if you don't shoo them away.    The really off putting part is the totally silent expressionless faces.  It really gets to you.   You really do feel like a zoo animal or like you've just stepped off a space ship.

   camping police psts and petrol service stations

 

 

On the occasions when they do talk to you - generally in towns rather than beside the road - they ask you your country, you say Australia and they respond with "Ricky Ponting".  Cricket really is the national obsession here.

   The national obsession

 

As I said in the heading,  I'm in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal,  I visited it on my first day in Agra - several days ago and it really is a spectacular piece of architecture.  It was actually larger than I expected.  I have heard so many people say that it was smaller than they expected that I had lowered my expectation.  It is actually about the size I had always expected it to be.   Unfortunately like so many of the places I've been on this tour the famous fountains etc have been dry.  I did manage to get one beautiful reflection shot from a puddle in one of them, but I had to get the camera so low that you get the building and nothing else - no garden at all - so it doesn't have the appeal that the Taj Mahal shots should have.   But it's another place I can tick off my "seen that" list add to my photo collection, and it was great to see.

 

After self catering since Varanasi, cooking on the floor of my hotel room in Kanpur whilst I rested there for a couple of days - and being on Cold & Flu tablets the whole time - I ate out my first night in Agra.   I don't know if it was the food I ate or the fact that I ran out of Cold & Flu tablets that caused me to vomit endlessly that night, but my first night in Agra was not a good one.  As a result I once again headed to the doctor the next day.    The good and bad thing about Agra is that it has a reputation of being a wrort capital - paying commissions for just about anything etc.  As soon a I mentioned "doctor" to the hotel reception desk they heard the cash register sound and the dollar signs appeared in their eyes.  They rushed me free to the local full-service centre who quite early in the conversation used the words "tests" and "insurance".  I'll call it "full-service" rather than "over-service" because, (a.) over servicing would be a crime in Aus and (b.)  I couldn't fault the logic in the following argument - I've been to doctors in Varanasi and Kanpur and been given cocktails of drugs with no tests to determine what the problem really was.  And I havent got any better.  Here they would do the tests to determine the appropriate treatment.   So with many samples going to the Pathology labs for analysis, Chest Xrays & ultrasounds  (it just happens to be the Agra IVF centre). I've now spent a couple of days in the http://www.agratesttubebabycentre.com also known as the Amit Jaggi  Memorial Hospita l and will spend at least a couple more days in Agra before moving on to continue my journey.  I still suffer from the nasal congestion that I am sure was causing the nausea and vomiting - but started a new Antibiotic yesterday after some of the lab results came back.   Fingers crossed I'll be on the road again soon and properly well for the first time in nearly 2 months.

   Agra Fort / Repairs to the mosque outside the Taj

   The Taj / My other (full service) hotel room in Agra with I.V. drip

 

Jeff
www.whereonearthisjeff.com