After a more than 24 hour train trip from Hyderabad (which is day thirty) to Agra we arrived early in the morning. A couple of meters before we reached the platform here and there guys where jumping on the train. These where taxi guys who hoped to get a fair. Also at our door that already was opened a guy jumped on the driving train. Once we got off he wanted to bring us to his hotel. However, we where a bit reluctant in the beginning. Therefore we where looking in my tourist book first for a hotel. We decided on the Sakura hotel. The guy said it was a rubbish hotel and could bring us there for 50 rupees with his car. The hotel turned out to be very nice!
After sleeping a bit more we where of for our touristic travels. The plan was to go to Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and then to the baby Taj. This plan needed to be alliterated a bit due to V.I.P. Visitors. They close the place then down due to security reasons. We travelled around Agra with a car and driver which was arranged by the hotel.
So we went first to baby Taj followed by Agra Fort. baby Taj was a beautiful grave from some important people where I didn't note down the name of. Agra fort was next. The fort seemed to be very famous, the queue's where long to get in and inside it was also very busy then off coarse. The fort is so popular I suppose because it says to be the most important fort of India. It was so important only because of financial reasons though, so yeah what is important... It was also important as it is the fort where Shah Jahan (the guy who built Tah Mahal) was prisoner by his own son for 8 Years to save his throne. The fort it self was very grand and was constructed with red sandstone and White marble. However, the features of the fort didn't appeal that much to me, it qanat that much different than other places if been from my point of view. Or maybe I was a bit annoyed by the tourist flood that was there or maybe because I was a bit I'll from the train journey, don't know.
Then we where of for lunch. As I have been eating a lot of rice and indian food, I thought it was time for a western meal. We ended up in a pizza hut. The food was horrible ( I thought) so not recommendable in India ( and you pay 2-3 times more). Then the driver suggested us to go to Mathura,( birthplace of lord Krishna, a Hindu god ) which is a place around 60km from Agra. However Liny wanted to go to Taj Mahal first. This was not a good plan because now the V.I.P.'s where gone, there would be twice the number of tourist. We didn't know how busy it would have been so we checked it out. It turned out that we should have listened to the driver because the queues where endless!! The ticket as it is costed me 750 rupees and Liny 20 ( bloody racists) if we wanted to jump the Que, we could bribe a guy with 1000 rupees. He would let us in straight away and would have saved us 3 hours waiting. I saw already a group of White people doing it. However once they are in it would have been a chaos of people so we decided to change our plans a bit of the next day. We where planning to leave to Jaipur in The morning which became afternoon. So instead we went to Mathura. After 20 km from Agra heaven came loose and it started raining, hard!
Once at the temple we saw the bath of Lord Krishna's wife Radha. We were not allowed to bring any electrical devices in the temple AND mosque. At this holy ground is a temple and mosque builds straight next to each-other. We needed to take our shoes of before entering. This resulted in Liny and I walking in the rain on marble floors, a bit cold. After an hour in there and buying something for my mum ( where I couldn't do bargaining for :-( ) we went back to the car. On the way back we dropped by an internet cafe but due to the rain the power was cut ( which is very common) as we where looking a guy asked us to take a look in his shop. We thought, why not it's raining out here anyway. I ended up buying two typical Indian shirts.... ( good business men huh?) when the rain was over after half an hour we walk around and found a place that had Internet. After spending 1.5 hours there we went to The comfy hotel.
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