Fatehpur Sikri

After I signed off last time, I chatted with my hosts for a while. An older gentleman played sitar for a while which was quite lovely. The store owner, Raj, offered to take me to dinner so off we went. On the way, we had to stop at the home of one of his relatives, as there was a big family event going on. His brother was getting engaged, and the two families were involved in negotiations. They were deciding on the wedding date, which must be auspicious and agreed upon by both families. I assume that the financial arrangements were already completed at this point. We went to the house and I was ushered into the room where the women all were being kept. We sat on the beds and we all introduced ourselves, but conversation went no further than that. A couple of the younger ones spoke English but were too shy to use it with me, and given that I know three words in Hindi, none of which had anything to do with the situation at hand, we didn't have much to talk about. We only stayed for a few minutes but it was really neat to experience this type of event first-hand. We grabbed a quick meal (it was getting late and the restaurant wanted to get us out quickly) and then he dropped me back at my hotel.

Yesterday I had a leisurely morning and then caught a bus for Fatehpur Sikri. This is a city about 40 kms outside Agra and is the home to a ghost town composed of 500 year old ruins. When these buildings were built, it was the capital of the area and the king lived there, however there are limited water sources there, so once the king died, his successor moved the capital to Agra. I find it a bit odd that the king didn't factor water into the equation when he was choosing a spot to build his capital city.

There is a huge and very beautiful mosque there which is still in use. It looks more like a fortress and is a walled compound with a large courtyard in the centre. There are various spots for worship within the grounds. A sign at the main gate announces that there is no commerce allowed in the area which was a welcome, if somewhat brief, relief. I could hardly read the sign for the vendors who had their wares draped all over it, and the place was full of hawkers and touts. Every one of them, just like everywhere else in India, were "not guides" and didn't want money. The plan is to provide you with all kinds of services under the guise of just being friendly and then hound you for money at the end of it all. For the most part I don't get sucked into these schemes, but sometimes the touts just seem so sincere that I believe them. This usually happens when a holy man blesses me in some way and then demands baksheesh. It really annoys me when this happens and I'm not even aware that a service has been performed. In Nepal at least the holy guys ask first before swiping a tiki onto your forehead, so you get a chance to duck out. Not so here.

My visit to the mosque was absolutely horrendous - I just could not escape the touts and vendors. It really was a shame because it would otherwise have been such a beautiful place to visit. One guy who was a student (not a guide!) refused to leave me alone and actually told me that I wasn't allowed to walk around alone and that he was obligated to follow me around and talk endlessly at me. I asked to speak to his boss and the guy was stupid enough to take me to someone who got him off my back for me. Next it was a gaggle of little boys who did the same thing. It's harder to be rude to the little kids, but honestly they're just as persistent and annoying, even if they are cute. So it went for the next half hour or so until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to leave.

We had to leave our shoes at the entrance, which is standard in most temples in Asia, so I threw mine in the pile at the doorway. When I left I was chased half way down the steps by the same student from inside as well as another guy. I was expected to pay them for watching my shoes. I argued for I don't know how long with them and drew quite a crowd. Clearly locals were not paying for the privilege of throwing their shoes in a pile and I knew I was being ripped off. Finally, when it became clear that these guys were going to follow me and demand money for the remainder of the day, I paid them off but not without a verbal blasting about being thieves and liars. When I handed over the money, the student said in a very quiet and humble voice, as they always do when they're extorting money from you, "as you wish". It was so clearly not "as I wish" that I almost belted him.

The next stop was the ruins of the palace and fort. It was a little better here, once I got through the mass of touts at the entrance. Still, it was really difficult to enjoy as even the Indian tourists were giving me a hard time. They would deliberately get into the way of my photos and have a good laugh over it. At an algae-filled bath, a kid wanted money to jump into the water. His pimps were calling him "Acapulco Boy" even though the leap was only about 10 feet.

I had one positive experience when a group of boys asked to have their picture taken. They posed beautifully, really enjoyed looking at the photo and all shook my hand and thanked me afterwards. If it wasn't for these very rare little glimpse of goodness here, I'd be going out of my mind. This place is really starting to wear me down. I had a long wait for the bus back to Agra which was packed to the rafters and turned out to be the milk route, so by the time I got back to town I was really drained. I went to the shop next door to use the internet, but their server was down so I had to go somewhere else. The shop guys all wanted me to join them for the evening but I just couldn't face it so I just went back to my room.

I'm going to spend the day today just lounging by the pool and reading. I really need a break from the masses. I'm trying to get a train to Delhi for tomorrow but they all seem to be booked. I know there's some weird kind of quota system here and even though the website makes it look like the trains are full, they're not really. I'm not sure how this works and will have to try to sort it out today. One of the guys from the shop is a travel agent and will be in Delhi for part of the time that I'm there. He wants to take me out on Thursday night - I thought it would be fun to see the city from the Indian perspective. Imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from him asking me to book him a hotel room while I was booking my own. I'm all for cultural differences, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around this one.