The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire

The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire

Part 11 – February 14, 2015. Valentine’s Day at the tomb perhaps the most loved woman who ever lived, Muntaz Mahal, and the man who built it for her after her death bearing their 14^th child. The husband’s name was Shah Jahan and the tomb is called the Taj Mahal.

We experienced just pretty much all what the guidebooks say when we got to the train station in New Delhi at 5:30 this morning. Traffic was nonexistent at that time in the morning until we got within 100 meters of the station in our taxi. Then all came to a screeching halt with horns blaring from nearly every vehicle. After we had moved only a few meters in the next couple of minutes we asked how far it was to the station and our driver pointed to it through the gaggle of vehicles headed (but not moving) in both directions without a care about lane or rightful direction of travel. Out we popped, paid our 300 rupees for our 8 km ride and headed for the main gate.

All was according to guidebook script so far. Many porters offered to carry our bags which consisted of one small, pull along, wheeled carry-on bag each. Per guidebook advice, we refused all offers and continued to pull them behind us. One man then said, “let me see your ticket, where are you going.” We held onto it tightly but showed it to him contrary to sage guidebook advice. “You go there to that entry point” (manned by one man standing next to an x-ray scanner), he said. Dutifully we walked to that man, he looked at our tickets and said, “that train to Agra has been cancelled.” This is exactly what the guide books warn of, someone official looking looks at your ticket, tells you the train is cancelled, and then sends you on a wild goose chase which lasts until after your train has left the station. We quickly said, “thank you we will check on that” and headed for the enquiry desk, something he hoped we would not do. There we quickly determined that the train was on time and about to enter the station. We walked over and around many people sleeping on the floor in front of the real entrance and had our luggage scanned and cleared. And there we were on the very platform we needed with our train named on the sign overhead and chugging into the station as we watched. Disaster averted.

Disaster averted but still ready to pounce on us. We know we are supposed to be in an AC/first class car, but every one that passed us on the platform said that on the outside. We also read in the guidebooks that our names would be on a printed list taped to the outside of our car, but we did not see any printed lists as the cars passed. Were they there? Not knowing, we got into the car immediately in front of us and decided to take two vacant seats. This worked well because we were among the first people into the car. But we noticed that everyone else was looking for specific assigned seats. So we asked a fellow passenger. He looked at our printed tickets (which we got months ago with the help of our future innkeeper/host in Jaipur) and said, “you are supposed to be in car E3, seats 47 and 48.” He was right, there it was right on the ticket if you know the shorthand.

OK. We took our bags from the overhead rack and got off the train to look for car E3. It was a lot easier than we imagined. Right there in front of us on the very sign we had looked at and stood under earlier was the order of the cars in the train – it had been there all along. We simply hurried forward a few cars, came to some cars with passenger lists on them, asked which one was E3 (we were standing next to it), and found our names on the list. It was no problem whatsoever, we tell ourselves.

The train left promptly at 6:00 on schedule and we began our two hour ride complete with a 1.5 hour breakfast. Bottled water, hot tea, and crackers came first. We thought that would be the end. But no, cold cereal with hot milk, fruit, brown bread, butter, and jam followed shortly thereafter. Surely this must be the end. No again. It was time for the main course. We both ordered and got hot stuff that we don’t know the names of along with dipping sauces for Sandy and yoghurt for me. I don’t think the yoghurt was supposed to be included with mine but I saw the guy across the aisle get some (with his chapatti as it appeared) so I asked for some thinking it went with my stuff too. Indeed, it helped get the spiciest things down.

And this is our actual view out our train window. Just a little smog.

8:06 found us safely on the platform in Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. A 10 km ride in a tuk-tuk put us within a few hundred meters of our “homestay,” i.e., B&B, where were forced to abandon the tuk-tuk because the main street was blocked off in anticipation of a visit from the CM, some sort of a government official/minister, to the “Nature Walk” down the street. What time was he due to arrive? Nobody knew but the street would remain closed and guarded by hundreds of uniformed men until he did. We are lucky we got as close to our homestay as we did. Our tuk-tuk driver, Raj, told the officials blocking the road a quarter mile back from where we could eventually proceed no further by motorized vehicle that we were VIPs. It made our chests and heads just swell up.

Anyway, we got to within a couple hundred meters of the homestay by tuk-tuk and hoofed it the rest of the way – down the street decorated for the CM and us. After only one missed turn we found the street we were looking for and are now comfortably ensconced in room 5 of the Coral Tree homestay art 9 in the morning, just 600 meters from the east gate of the Taj Mahal, and ready to go there.

Normally we would have purchased our tickets at the building just a couple of doors from the Coral Tree homestay and then taken a battery powered go cart to the gate. Only non-polluting vehicles are allowed within 200 meters of the gate. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we had to walk because all traffic was banned on the road due to the visit of the CM.

So we hoofed it and saw these birds which we believe could be the national bird of India due to their numbers alone.