We rose early in an attempt to beat the crowds and capture the sunrise at the Taj Mahal. The night before we had worked out that we needed to buy tickets from a separate office 1km from the East gate that we were planning on entering through. We arrived at the ticket office at around 6:00am to find only a couple of people ahead of us. We sat down and waited. And waited and waited. As we waited, more and more tour bus drivers/guides turned up and thought they were entitled to skip the queue and wait by the ticket window. They were wrong and Chris pushing past them told them so.
Eventually the workers wandered into the ticket booth to think about starting work. They were the same guys that had been sitting around opposite us for about 15 minutes. Apparently the large queue of people waiting to buy tickets had not been enough of a prompt for them to start work.
When they did finally start selling tickets we were annoyed to find that, because they have separate queues for Indians and foreigners, they could choose to serve the Indian guides first. Never mind the fact that they were at the Indian window buying tickets for their Western customers and had arrived after us. We waited and waited and, with a French family, grew more and more annoyed. When Chris did finally reach the window they had no change to give him. They had literally started the day with not a scrap of small money and were relying on the fact that people would have exact amounts. After we got through that battle and collected our free water and shoe covers we set about making our way to the East gate. Accosted by rickshaws drivers we fought our way down the road only to reach the gate and line up yet again, this time in a gigantic line of tourists all waiting for the gates to open. Apparently opening at sunset is just a theory and in practice, little is done before 7am.
Before we could enter the grounds we all had to go through security, in our separate queues for men and women. I made it through relatively quickly but Chris was stuck in the masses. He made it through the security screen and pat down only to get stopped at the bag search. Why they have metal detectors when they search everybody anyway is beyond us. In total we queued four times: for tickets, to have our tickets checked, to walk through a metal detector and finally to have our bag searched.
In Chris' bag was a tripod that, for some unknown reason, they did not want to allow in. We pointed out another man with a tripod that had been let through and were told that he must have a permit from Delhi. Security tried to make Chris walk the kilometre back to the ticket office to leave his tripod and then told him he would need to queue all over again. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Despite having an audience of fellow tourists we both yelled and swore at the security until they finally accepted that we were not walking the 2km kilometre round trip to drop the tripod off when it was not even on the list of banned items to begin with. As these people do though, they lied to our faces telling us that there was a sign back at the ticket office saying that tripods were in fact not allowed.
Chris found a helpful shop owner across the road who was happy enough to hold onto the tripod and our bag (why carry it around when we don't have to?) but accepted no responsibility for our belongings.
After six weeks of fighting India on a daily basis it had all become too much. We were sick of their systems trying to ruin every last tourist destination that the country had to offer. It was after 7am when we got through the gates and we couldn't help but wonder what the point of opening at sunrise was if it meant you were still queueing outside as the sun rose.
We walked through the Taj complex and, to an extent, our troubles were washed away. It truly was a stunning sight.
There's a part of the Taj which requires you to wear shoe covers while inside. We had another 'could anything else go wrong?' moment when Chris thought he'd left his shoe covers in the bag back at the shop. Luckily, this being India and all, there were some dodgy guys giving them out for a fee. We slipped them on before realising that Chris' were actually in his pocket. We tossed them to the dodgy man as payment and continued into the mausoleum. Chris snapped some sneaky photos inside as to get his full 750 rupees worth. As we wandered around the complex Chris noted all of the other people with tripods and was frustrated that he'd been singled out.
As Kyle said, there's only so long you can stare at a building for. We wandered around for a while then headed out. The crowds by this stage were huge but, there was no queue to get in anymore. Considering we missed the sunrise thanks to crowds anyway, if we had our time over we'd probably just go later in the morning and save lining up.
We collected our belongings from the shop keeper and then battled cycle rickshaws, horse and carts and souvenir touts all the way back to our guesthouse. Thankfully there was a buffet breakfast in a revolving restaurant waiting for us.
We loaded up our plates with homemade baked beans, boiled eggs, toast, Indian breads and curries and waited for the restaurant to revolve. Two more guests arrived and they must have figured it was then worth switching the thing on. What a bore! We barely moved 20cm and the smooth revolution we were hoping for was instead a jolting one that meant we rocked back and forth as we tried to eat.
After breakfast, thinking we wouldn't be riding too far, we lazed about and took full advantage of the dreamy cloud like pillows and wifi before checking out and getting on the road.
While the first road we took was average the second was nice enough and we made it to Kanpur, our intended destination, relatively easily. Finding a hotel though would prove impossible. As we came over the freeway we had spotted a couple of hotels and, after finally finding an off ramp, tried our best to locate them again. Instead we got lost in the bumpy, muddy backstreets of Kanpur, got cut off by a railway line and battled the traffic of a very major intersection more times than any person ever should. We finally found our way to the road on which we had seen, or as it would turn out...thought we had seen, the hotels. The first didn't have a sign but looked enough like a hotel for us to ask. Chris was shown a box of a room with nothing but a piece of foam on the floor. Ah...thanks but not thanks. The next was a construction site (we've noticed that across the country signs go up before the building itself). Finally we came to a huge sign advertising what looked to be a very decent hotel. Unfortunately it was just a sign and was for a hotel in the centre of the city. And, after the traffic we'd encountered already, we weren't about to try and get in there. Instead we found a guesthouse on the main road and thought it might do as a last resort. When Chris was offered a dirty, stinky room with a squat toilet for 1500 rupees his response was "I would rather ride through the tonight to Varanasi than sleep here."
And that was that...we decided to leave Kanpur and hope for the best. Unfortunately there did not appear to be an on ramp to the freeway so we were forced to go the wrong way up the down ramp and hope the trucks moved. They did and the sea of traffic parted with perfect timing allowing us to slip right back onto the highway. And gosh it felt good to be getting away from Kanpur.
As dusk approached there rose an angelic guesthouse from a green field in the distance. An orange sun set behind it and gave it a glow that made it ever so appealing. But, as we do, we rode straight past it and figured we'd just stop at the next one. Darkness fell and we rugged up and put my clear visor in my helmet so Chris could wear it and see where we were going. I, on the other hand, had his tinted visor and therefore everything looked horribly ominous. I gripped Chris tighter than ever.
The next guesthouse we looked at was for truckies and was lit only when a diesel generator was blaring next door. Oh, and there was a giant German Shepherd locked up down the corridor. We kept going. Chris would later inform me that, as we rode in the darkness breaking the one important rule we had made for ourselves, he had the song 'Dumb Ways to Die' in his head. Simultaneously I had been thinking about how they would identify us if something went horribly wrong. Not appropriate!
As we rode I spotted a sign for Allahabad and thought I recognised it as the town that had held the giant Kumbh Mela festival that we had heard so much about. The key word here would be held. There was no past tense about it. We sought refuge behind a truck that led us into town but even it didn't know where the unmarked speed bumps were. We slammed on the brakes behind him. We fought our way through the town of Allahabad and saw zero accommodation options. Eventually we pulled out the Lonely Planet and got ourselves heading in the right direction. Everywhere we asked was either full or ridiculously overpriced.
10:30pm rolled around and we settled on a place that Chris talked down from 12000 to 3000 rupees. Kumbh Mela was still happening and, as such, Allahabad was taking full advantage of the millions of pilgrims that were in town. While we were unhappy about it, the other option was to continue to Varanasi and our tired eyes were telling us that wasn't such a great idea. We settled in, ate half a mandarin each (the only food since breakfast) and tried to sleep.
What a day!
1 comment:
Awesome experience
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