Hello again, my lovelies! I'm back from a few days in New York now (about which there is LOTS to write - but not yet...) so here's the next thrilling instalment of My Passage Through India:

DAY 8: Agra -> Jaipur

Part One: The Taj Mahal

• Our earliest start yet saw us rising at 4am and getting ready for a rip-roaring tourism blitz, beginning with the hugely - and, as it turns out, deservedly - famous Taj Mahal. (Never mind that, back in Munich, I found not one but TWO people at the EPO who had never heard of it!) It was still dark as Mr Singh drove us to the outskirts of Agra, where we had to leave the car and jump in a horse-drawn carriage to take us the last mile or so to the entrance.
• We got there at 5.40am and were utterly alone. Not another tourist in sight! It was quite bizarre to have a moment of silence, here in India, land of constant noise. And, with the ears resting, our noses sprang into action, savouring the pungent aroma of a nearby open sewer and the sweet musk of the nag pulling our carriage.
• As the dawn approached we could see the first stirrings of life: a tiny teashop with a man mixing and serving hot sweet masala chai to rickshaw drivers and policemen (and me); a mound of stray dogs in the middle of a road junction; a gaggle of tour guides preparing to tout for business; and a trickle of tourists forming a queue behind us - HAH! - to get tickets into the Taj Mahal.
• We took an old, wizened guide with tombstone teeth, who turned out to be very good, and as six o'clock struck we were the first through the security checks and into the grounds. It was still pre-dawn, and a plump moon hung over the outer buildings - themselves delightful ornate structures in red sandstone - but we didn't dwell on these sights, instead heading for the jackpot: a spot right at the front of the crowds looking up the long fountain pools and flowerbeds to the Taj Mahal.
• The Taj Mahal is simply beautiful! I shan't write much about it - it's too famous - except to say that I was stunned. I like to think I'm a jaded, cynical, world-weary traveller, and I'm usually sceptical of tourist hype, so I was expecting to be underwhelmed by this mausoleum. But (like Niagara Falls, another over-hyped but worthy site) in fact you CAN believe the hype in this instance. So symmetrical! So pure! So delightful! Truly marvellous!
• After a few moments of snap-happy sight-gazing, we walked towards the Taj Mahal and were among the first to scale the platform that serves as a floor for the building, having a chap there slip our elasticated plastic-bag shoe covers over our feet and walking in.
• Our guide was talking in an unnecessarily loud voice, somewhat shattering the serene moment of our entry, but soon I realised why he was doing it: the echo was ASTOUNDING! He let rip with a high-pitched "Allāhu akbar" and it reverberated around the perfectly round inner chamber for some ten seconds - I counted!
• After a little longer in this inner sanctum, home to the tomb of Mogul Shah Jahan's third and principal and favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal ('Beloved Jewel of the Palace') who died giving birth to her fourteenth child in 1631 (he only bothered having one child with his first two wives, which I think shows quite clearly where his affections lay), we headed back out and started taking photos of the Taj Mahal from every conceivable angle.
• Our guide, it turns out, knew every spot from which to take pictures, and he led us from one to the next for a good hour or so. Fabulous! I shall put a few of them up on my site soon...
• By the time we left the Taj Mahal, the sun was high in the sky and the place was overrun with tourists. We were SO glad we'd taken the trouble to get there super early! We left the way we came in, but first we lingered over our final glimpses of the beautiful Taj Mahal on its beautiful marble platform in its beautiful gardens, the achingly pure white of the structure ornamented by the myriad colours of the tourists all around.
• And thence back to the hotel for a spot of breakfast.

Part Two: Fatehpur Sikri

• We left Agra and headed back towards Rajasthan, but quite quickly we reached the ruins of the fabulous city of Fatehpur Sikri, for a short time capital of the area but soon abandoned for lack of water. There is a huge mosque and a splendid royal palace & gardens complex, which we very much enjoyed even though it was scorching hot.
• And I mean scorching: we were obliged to take our shoes off in the mosque area (we decided to carry them with us rather than leave them in the monster pile of footwear at the top of the main entrance stairway) and as a result crossing the courtyard was like walking across burning coals!
  
• Sadly, our enjoyment of the mosque was tarnished by the persistence of a gaggle of youths to "befriend" us and show us around. We really just wanted them to piss off and leave us alone, but they were having none of it. So we just went about our tourist business with them in the corner of our eye the whole time.
• After Fatehpur Sikri, we headed to the same roadside restaurant as before and had another bite to eat. This time, the place was heaving with busloads of tourists.

Part Three: Return to Jaipur

• The journey back to Jaipur was long and less colourful than on the way to Agra; the number of Holi-stained Indians had dropped off markedly by this time. But it was still a treat to pass through the little towns along the main road and see "ordinary" life going on.
  
• We headed to the airport and dropped Gareth off (he had to be back at work the next day). Back in Jaipur, we checked in to the sister hotel of our previous one, which was even more sumptuous but lacked a rooftop restaurant. Instead, there was poolside dining.
• But we didn't sample this delight, because Mr Singh had invited us to have dinner with him at his eldest brother's house. Michaela was whisked off to the kitchen to be with the womenfolk and to get dressed in a sari, while Christian & I sat with the menfolk and had a stilted conversation (Mr Singh was having to interpret everything).
• We had wanted to bring a bottle of wine to say thankyou, but found no off-licence that had any, so we ended up giving the elder Mr Singh a bottle of whisky. It turns out that Mr Singh the elder is very fond of a drop; at least, he was pretty legless by the end of the night. We had dancing and laughing and traditional Rajasthani music, followed by a meal on the livingroom floor.
• Mrs Singh had cooked "soft meat" for us, which turned out to be the innards of a goat. These tasted much better than you might think; but in any case we were obliged to eat up, because our Mr Singh had warned us that to leave food on our plates was most rude.
• And then, quite suddenly (and before any sign of dessert, sadly), Mr Singh announced that he would take us back to the hotel. Ah well, so that was the end of that then.
  

Am I on a roll or what?! Here comes another instalment, hot on the heels of my last missive:

DAY 6: Jaipur -> Bharatpur

• Even though it was his birthday today, Christian was a dear and offered to go and fetch Gareth from Jaipur airport early in the morning with Mr Singh. Michaela & I consequently had an extra hour to sleep off the cheeky tequilas we had shot back at the bar where we got the carry-out beers.
• Once Gareth arrived, we had a bite of breakfast (when Gareth managed to destroy a fellow guest's attempt at fraternisation with a put-down of tectonic proportions) before packing up the car and heading off eastwards.
• Our first stop on the long road east was a petrol station, from where we had fabulous views of the CRAZY traffic. A favourite moment was the sight of a rickety old bus leaning ridiculously far over, thanks to the extra storey of passengers that were perched on its roof! Everyone was heading out of town and back to their villages, Mr Singh explained, because today was the start of Holi, the Festival of Colours.
• Our next brief stop was at a huge Hindu temple with a monster statue of Ravana, the monkey god, who is the chief deity for Holi. We saw people drenched head to toe in lurid colours, a reddish purple predominating. Even the fountain was dyed blue!
• The first major stop was at the Step Wells at Abhaneri. This is a fantastic inverted pyramid that served as a summer palace for the local princes and as a water storage. Basically, it's a massive hole in the ground with symmetrical tiers of staircases along three sides and a series of rooms carved out of the rock of the fourth side of the hole. We had a very enthusiastic guide, Vijay, who was able to explain everything we saw. And there was plenty to see: Hindu statuary & symbolism, architectural splendours, and a neighbouring temple complex that majestically overlooked the fields around.
• We were getting a bit peckish by now, but managed to hold out until we reached a big roadside restaurant that was clearly aimed at passing busloads of tourists. There wasn't much atmosphere, but the food was good enough and the tea was hot & sweet.
• At the sides of this main road (currently being upgraded to a dual carriageway, and therefore dotted with roadworks) we could glimpse everyday life for rural Indians: women drawing water from wells; women in flourescent saris tending fields; women shopping at markets; men sitting around in the hot sun; intricately stacked piles of cowpats for fuel, less intricately piled haystacks, the tall chimneys of brick kilns (this is a clay area), and more & more people dyed all sorts of colours riding their motorbikes or hitching lifts on the back of agricultural vehicles.
• We reached our destination, a hotel on the outskirts of Bharatpur, just in time to catch a golden sunset over the trees of the Keoladeo National Park and bird sanctuary (which we would visit the next day). After checking in (our two rooms had a shared aircon control panel in the corridor, which was amusing) we headed straight out to the swimming pool to get rid of some of the day's travel dust. But soon we were being plagued by mosquitos - the many bats circling overhead were no match for the legions of insects - so we headed in for some dinner and a bottle of Indian red wine to toast Christian's birthday again. Delicious!

DAY 7: Bharatpur -> Agra

• It was another early start: we wanted to do the bird sanctuary before the day got too hot. So we postponed breakfast and drove straight to the entrance of the National Park. There we hired a guide and some pushbikes, and made our way into the heart of the sanctuary. Our guide, a young, purple-stained fellow with a big smile, was very knowledgeable about all the bird and animal species we saw, and his enthusiasm for the wildlife was infectious.
• We saw SO MANY things! Including a tiger paw print, snakes, a troupe of monkeys, and a huge antilope with monster antlers. Not being a birder myself, I sadly can't list all the bird species we saw, but I know that at one point our guide got very excited because we saw a pair of something very rare. Which was good. It was a lovely couple of hours, even if the bikes were naff and we all had a sore bum at the end.
• Back at the hotel, we had the remnants of the breakfast buffet and then checked out. We had a little time to kill, because Mr Singh wanted to avoid the worst of the drunken Holi traffic, which he was told would have thinned out by lunchtime, so we just sat and enjoyed the cool breeze in the foyer for a while.
• We reached our next destination, Agra, a few hours later, and headed straight for our hotel, which was an establishment of somewhat faded grandeur. I felt a little disappointed that we weren't "doing" Agra itself, but apparently the Holi antics can get a little out of hand, so we gave it a miss and instead sunned ourselves by the hotel pool and took it easy.
• The food in the two hotel restaurants was delicious. For lunch Gareth introduced us to kathi rolls, which are the Indian equivalent of a tortilla wrap - but that description doesn't do them justice. I fell in love with a new food style!! And our evening meal was Chinese - all the rage in India right now - of which the highlight was the chili honeyed vegetables.
• We had a reasonably early night, because the next day was going to be a very early start - AGAIN! But this time, it was SOOOOO worth it...