Beethoven In Trance - Episode 50

Day 3 in Noida, India. Morning 6am, we took a taxi to the Delhi train station. It's an old train station (not the one in new Delhi). It's in pretty bad shape. The guard there were all armed with rifle or machine guns. We went on the train, and found our seats after looking carefully at our tickets. The train ride itself was ok, but the sight along the way wasn't that pleasant. There was almost a village under each bridge we went by. By 10:30am, we arrived in Agra where we would see Taj Mahal. The moment we stepped off the train, we got followed by taxi drivers touting for service. We were convinced that a pre-paid taxi was the way to go, and we were looking for pre-paid taxi stand as soon as we left the platform. We saw a small pre-paid taxi stand across the exit, but it didn't look right to me. 'Where is the policy who is manning the booth?' I was thinking. 'It must not be the one'. We started to walk around and we were followed by a team of taxi drivers. We tried to ask the policeman at the gate where the pre-paid taxi was, and he wasn't really helpful (well, he wasn't helpful at all). Finally we circled back to the pre-paid taxi stand, and the policeman inside gave us a ticket, and we paid the taxi fee base on the price written on the board. I could feel the the people around me staring at my wallet intensively when I pulled the money out of the wallet. At that moment, we realized that police there and taxi drivers were working together. Police there didn't control the taxi drivers, it was the other way around. We took the reciept and followed the driver to the car. There were two of them in the car. One is the driver (who doesn't speak English), the other one is the talker. I was concerned with this fact and I made a phone call to our friend to let her know that we arrived and we were riding in taxi to our hotel. I talked loud enough so that the 'talker' can hear me. The talker started talking, introduced himself and asked our names. He said he was an economics major in the school and this was his side job. I asked him what did he think about the current stock market. He said, 'oh, there are a lot of markets here in India'. Yeah, right! He continued to try to sell us his guided tour in Agra, but I told him that we had a friend in the city and we were on our way to meet her. Then he finally shut up.

The taxi stopped around 500 meters away from Taj Mahal complex (that's what they call it, a complex) because taxi was not allowed to get closer. After confirming the fact with the hotel (thank god for unlocked cell phone), we got off the taxi and started to wonder where should we go now. The talker asked us for the reciept (with the reciept, they will go back to the train station to get the money we paid earlier). Then he grabbed a manual rickshaw and told us the rickshaw can take us there for 20 rupees. Well, he underestimated us. We asked him which direction the hotel was, and we started walking. We got in this local market street and it was in poor condition (to say the least). It's narrow, dirty, and full of traffic and touts. All kind of rickshaw, animal and people were walking in both directions. We walked for a while and reached a conjunction which we didn't know which branch to follow. The rickshaw driver at that time showed up and said 'wrong way, wrong way', and he 'insisted' to take us to the hotel. We asked him how much and he still said 20 rupees. "No way, we just walked that long way", I thought, I countered 10, and he accepted it. We hop on the rickshaw and he took us to the hotel (I found that we WERE heading the right direction). Anyway, we arrived and I paid him 10 rupees. He was mummering something (might be cursing us that time) but I didn't really care that much. It's not that I couldn't afford this 5 rupees ($1 = 45 rupees), it's a matter of principle. We just don't like to be ripped off when we know we can avoid, even for a penny.

After navigate through more touts we finally arrive the hotel. It was really close to Taj Mahal and it was quite and clean (comparing to outside). We settled down and we asked the hotel to arrange a taxi service for us to go to Fatephur Sikri, an abandoned kingdom for sightseeing. We asked for a non-AC car, because we were not huge fan of air condition in cars. The taxi driver showed up after 30 minutes and we set off our journey. The ride to the destination wasn't really peasant either, but by that time we have got used to it. Still the same image, dusty, dirty, animals, crazy drivers, and more of the same things.

The taxi driver dropped us off in front of a group of 'guides'. We are surrounded by them when we were still in the car. The moment we got off the car, we were attacked by all kinds of offers for guide services for various reasons. One guy tried to act authority-like and told us a guide was good for us because we won't be bothered there by other guides and beggars, and I fired him first (having problem with authority). We asked them how long was it to the gate, and they said it was gonna be 1 km. Well, we just ran a marathon, we can handle 1km. So we started to walk, then they followed us and said it was 2 km, the and told us the guys earlier tried to understate the distance so that we won't feel bored on the way. Well, 2km still didn't cut it. We went on walking. In the middle of way to the site, we met a single female (I think she is from US, but didn't ask her) on her way back from the opposite direction. I asked her how were things up there, and she said we just had to be persistent saying no. We compliment that she was so brave going there along (especially with a camera in front of her and small bag on her shoulder, she didn't look 'armed and dangerous' at all to me). Anyway, she looked not scared at all, and we were glad that we talked to her and felt much better about ourselves too. We kept on going and reached another fork branch road. We remember the girl told us to 'stay on the road', and we did. We went into a local market very much like the one we just went through one hour ago next to Taj Mahal. After 15 minutes of walking and we reached the end of the market and we realized that we went the wrong way. We then headed back to the branch road, and went onto another branch and finally we arrived the gate of the Fatepur Sikri complex.

Yes, there was an army of guides and touts, we ignored them and started our sightseeing. At this moment, anyone who wanted to start a conversation with us will be ignored and hold hostile against. Some guy in the complex asked us for video ticket when he saw me video taping, and I totally ignored him. He got louder and louder and eventually I told him if he wan't a policyman, don't bother talking to me. He continued to follow us and shouting for video tickets, and I decided to find a policy man for help. We eventually saw a policy man at the gate and we started to walk towards him. The other guy stopped following us and yelled at the policy man something and left. The policy asked me if I was video taping and I said yes. He told me that I needed a video ticket, and I could get it at the ticket office. Ok, I went back to the ticket office and got my ticket. Everything finally settled down. But I was at the edge by that time.

3 hours went by fast, I coudn't wait to leave because I was stressed out and was sick of the touts. Although the site itself worth the time to continue exploring, we have to get back to our taxi before it started to charge us 100 rupee / hour. We got back to the taxi and left the place. I was somewhat relaxed in the car. On our way back, we witnessed a street fight between two richshaw drivers. One of them pick up a brick on the ground and chased the other one. I didn't see the brick, my wife did. But it amazed me how one can just pick a brick from the ground in the middle of the road.

Back to hotel, we had our dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was a total rip off. The dinner was half of the price of our one night stay at the hotel, and we just had some vegatables, rice and egg. Fortunately, we brought some fish can with us, and we ate it with rice. That concluded our day 3 in Agra, India.