Lana in India: Agra and back, in just one day...

One of the things you just have to do before you leave India, they say, is visit the Taj Mahal. Rod, Thalia and I visited this majestic monument back in 1998. Thalia doesn’t remember much of it, but as she was 11 months old at the time, we’ll forgive her for this. Keir, Stumpy and Nutty had never been, and bizarrely neither had Holly. As the temperature hadn’t started rising past the comfortable level yet, it seemed like a good time to go…

The Taj Mahal is in Agra, which is a hellish five plus hour drive from Delhi. It can also be reached by train in two hours. Guess which option we chose! The downside of the train is that it leaves New Delhi Railway Station at 0615, so it was a rather early start indeed. But the train deposited us at Agra station at 0815, and it took until 0815 and 15 seconds before the hassle started. Agra is a dump, with no reason to visit beyond the Taj Mahal and possibly Agra Fort. So everyone getting off the train is a tourist, and therefore, ripe for touting. We had booked a minibus with driver and guide. This proved to be a godsend, as Rajiv was waiting for us on the platform with a little sign saying “Roderick Fairweather and Friends”. Okay, it wasn’t really a little sign. It would have been very easy for Rajiv to spot us, as the platform, while teaming with people, didn’t have many parties consisting of six white people and a baby. But we needed the sign, because it told us which Indian didn’t want money to help us, but only because we’d already paid him.

Rajiv led the way outside to the minibus and we climbed in, into an oasis of calm amid the teeming throng of Agra. This minibus was perfect with a passenger compartment consisting of four individual seats and a bench seat across the back. It even had two fully functioning seatbelts, plus less usefully, one half of a seatbelt. We strapped Holly’s car seat into one of the seats with both sides of the seatbelt. Rajiv told us our first stop was to be the Taj Mahal. Actually, our first stop was the Taj Mahal ticket booth, half a kilometre from the gates. This is as close as petrol and diesel engined vehicles can get to the Taj now, in an effort to curb the effects of pollution on the building. There are lots of restrictions on what you can take into the Taj grounds, so we were advised to leave food, fiction books (guide books are okay), packs of cards, Ipods, electronic games and USB cables in the bus. Didn’t have any USB cables on me. We then were given the choice of which type of environmentally friendly transport we would like to get to the gates. There was the free option, walking, but it was uphill and the start of what would be a very long day. Also, walking would give lots of opportunities for young men to try to convince us we really needed to buy whatever tat they were selling. Or we could pay some locals to go in a carriage pulled by a flea ridden horse, or in an electric rickshaw. Guess which option we chose!

The rickshaw deposited us as close to the gate as was possible, leaving a short distance for the young men to try to convince us we really needed to buy whatever tat they were selling. They had nasty replicas of the Taj and Rajasthani shoes, even though Agra is in Uttar Pradesh. No one was selling T-shirts saying “My boyfriend went to the Taj Mahal and all he got me was this lousy T-shirt”. A missed opportunity, for marketing and amusing spelling mistakes, I think. We reached the security check point and split into gender groups. From my queue I heard Rod explaining that Keir was in the right queue, even though his hair might suggest otherwise. I had to open my bag so the security lady could check inside to make sure I had not brought in anything subversive like a magazine or chocolate bar. Unfortunately, my bag did contain something she considered subversive. For inside was the instigator of riots and top of the Interpol Watch list, Keir’s teddy, Benny. Having known Benny for nine years I vouched for his behaviour. I promised I wouldn’t let him out of my bag. But this was not good enough. The lady would not let Benny in. I asked her what damage could a child’s small stuffed toy do to a 378 year old marble building. I begged for him, like an American Idol contestant facing the chop. But like Simon Cowell, she would not be moved. So I did the only thing I thought right, and started shouting over to Rod that the lady wouldn’t let Benny in. Maybe that teddy was a bad influence… Rod had also not been completely above board. He’d been carrying a copy of the ultra subversive, “Sunday Times of India” newspaper. That too would not be allowed in.

Rajiv came to the rescue. He apologised for not telling us back in the minibus we were not allowed to bring stuffed toys into the Taj. He’d only done this tour one thousand times, and was unaware stuffed blue teddies could be so subversive. He gave Benny to one of his friends in a shop outside the Taj for safekeeping. So after we’d visited the monument to love, we were going to have to visit the monument to marble nick-nacks to negotiate a hostage release. Marvellous!