the Taj Mahal adventure

The week I was to leave India, we decided to visit the Taj Mahal. It was one of the places I wanted to see, so we planned out our trip. Faith and I were to leave Wednesday night on a train. Travel through the night, arrive in Agra in the morning, spend the day at the Taj, then take another 3 hour train ride. We would arrive in Delhi Thursday evening, get a hotel for the night, spend Friday there and I would fly out at midnight. Great plan. Too bad it didn't happen like that.....

We left the house shortly after 9pm Wednesday evening. An hour later, our taxi arrived at the south Train station. It was dark by that time and I knew we were in for an adventure when we walked into the open air station and I saw hundreds of people laying on the ground. Blankets and baggage littered the waiting passengers along with fresh cow droppings. Yes, inside the station. Definitely had to watch your step. Scores of other people were crowding around the ticket windows. Course, still being in India, there was the typical staring also. Ugh.

We headed out of the waiting area towards where the boarding platforms were located. As we were going up the stairs, I tripped. Thought my flip flop had caught the stair when I was stepping up, but actually the strap of my flipflop came off! So, there I was trying to go up the stairs with a flipflop only held on to my foot at the heel. Don't know if you've every tried walking with a broken flipflop, doesn't work very well. :/ I had other shoes, but they were in my bag that someone else had at the top of the stairs. And I was NOT about to walk on those stairs with bare feet. So, if you can imagine... there I was was in the middle of the stairway, lifting my foot 12 inches in the air to clear the step with my dangling flipflop. At the top, I was able to get other shoes out of my bag and we continued on.

Our train was scheduled to leave 6 minutes after 11pm. And we were only an hour early, but couldn't find out what platform our train was leaving from. So, we stood for almost an hour in the main walk way. Course, white people just standing there? I'm sure people wondered what was wrong and we received more stares than usual. About 1050pm, we heard our train was going to be at platform 6, so we headed that direction.

sign at the "clean" station

The train that was on the tracks was not our train though. 11:06pm came and went. The train sitting there did not move and there was no sign of our train coming in. Midnight came and went, still no sign of our train or news of when it was departing. The sign above the platform still said the train was scheduled for 11:06.

It was so dark and foggy at the station. Looking down the tracks, the visibility was only about 50-60 feet.

In the empty tracks, there was water and trash. Very dark and eerie feeling. Especially when I caught glimpses of fat rats scurrying across the platform. Felt like I was in a dark, scary movie or something.

After sitting on cold, hard cement benches for an hour or so, our train finally came... to Platform 4. So we had to walk up the stairs and across to #4. Our train was there, so we found our car and our bunks. There were 4 bunks in one section, so we shared with a couple from Germany. I climbed up on the top bunk and soon was fast asleep. By that time, it was 2am. We left 3 hours late, so figured we'd get in late morning, maybe about noonish. That was wishful thinking.

Our 9 hour trip ended up being more like 19 hours. Took us 11 hours to go from Varanasi to Allahabad, which is 125km. So basically, the first half of our time on train, we just sat on the tracks. Every now and then, we'd inch our way forward. By 1pm, I was very hungry, but there was no food car on our train. We stopped at a station around that time and we headed off for a few minutes to find some food. There was only one food stand on our platform. One stand and 50-60 people all trying to buy some food. After pushing, shoving and elbowing, we managed to get a few bags of chips to curb our appetite.

We got into Agra about 830pm Thursday night. Arrived at our hotel where we were greeted by a tall man with a turban who said he thought of us like family. "Uh, not sure how that works, sir." Ordered some food from the restaurant at the hotel, then soon after went to bed. Amazing how tired you are after traveling, even when you're not doing anything.

the lighting was bad cause of all the pollution

Figured since we were there we would still try to go see the Taj... but alas, Friday is closed for the Muslim's day of prayer. ugh. no tourists allowed. But we did go to the park across the river and we were able to see the back side of the Taj. Though the pollution was so thick that is was very gray and overcast and hard to see the details of the building. And taking pictures was a little tricky, but at least I got to see the Taj Mahal!

After we looked around and took pictures, we headed down the road to New Delhi. Another 3-4 hour drive that lasted 6. Just glad I made it to Delhi in time to catch my flight that night. Well, turns out I had had a little extra cushion time, since my flight was an hour and half delayed. Then there's the fact that I arrived at the Beijing airport with no one there to pick me up.... but it's all good. :p

last day in India