Tuesday 11 November 2008
Delhi – Agra
So I go the cash machine to withdraw the cash so I can pay for the trip and the hotel as I'm checking out. I meet my driver for my trip through Rajasthan and he's called Raj – the third Raj I've met in three days, and the first two were brothers, which is mildly confusing.
Anyway we jump in the car and set off for Agra, a mere 220 km away. As we make our way out of Delhi I'm somewhat relived to leave it all behind. I'm starting to realise that this whole India thing is slightly more than I'd bargained for. I though the madness of Vietnam, the poverty of Cambodia and the generally crap weather of SE Asia would be enough to prepare me for what was to come in India. But without a foil like the good Doctor to contrast my own responses against, it's starting to just get the better of me slightly. I mean, it's more chaotic than Hanoi or Saigon, it's poorer than Phnom Penh, and it's much more severely polluted than anywhere in the world that I've been to at any time ever before. To be fair the latter is exacerbated by the seasonal fog that appears at this time, but still, it just serves to accentuate the differences of anything close to being normal. And as we'll see, the honesty of the people leaves something to be desired as well.
So anyway, I was leaving Delhi in my third Tata Indica of the holiday, and I was with Raj. We had a good chat, talking about anything and everything, although to be honest I could only understand about half the words and sentences that came out of his mouth. But we cover off a few topics about the pollution, the roads, cars and so on. I mention that I'm descended from James Skinner and it turns out he knows the guy and the history, but the full implication of this doesn't sink in until later.
One thing that comes from our conversation is that I have paid a very good price for my trip. For the car, tolls, parking, driver and hotels for 12 days and an overnight train from Jaipur to Bombay I paid 27000 INR, which works out at 30 GBP a day. I thought this was a bit steep but not too bad, although it was the cheapest quote I had out of three. From all the evidence I received since then, it turns out I got pretty much the top deal. But if I did well here, I was about to get royally ripped off three times in a row.
We stop off at a statue of Shiva by the road that has a live snake in a box in front of it (the statue has a snake round his neck), a Hindu temple called Jaigurudev and a mausoleum called Sikandra Fort.
So we arrive in Agra and go straight to the Taj Mahal, to check it out at sunset. Of course the pollution from Delhi combines with the 300 or so factories in Uttar Pradesh (which sounds like “utter rubbish” to me) so that the fog is only slightly less worse at what is probably the second most important historical landmark only after the Pyramids (and I would put Angkor Wat third). The local government is corrupt as hell and hasn't lifted a finger to prevent the pollution from slowly eroding away the surface of this most beautiful and peaceful of monuments.
Much like the Pyramids there's no official tour guide, and against my better judgement I get roped in by a “official government guide” who not only takes me to a side entrance that avoids the queues, but also explains to me the whole history of pretty much every part of the structure, and also takes some very good photographs with me in it (though I'm not sure that I necessarily add to those photos). Strangely (although maybe it's obvious) he's a fan of English cricket and tells me about the time he bumped into Andy Caddick at the Taj when England were here with Fletcher's tour. Fair play to him, he sounded enthusiastic.
The catch is that at the end of the trip he takes me to a marble carving shop and I'm pressured against my will to buy something, that comes in at about 13 GBP. Not too much in the long run but more than I was expecting to pay for in India. At least I bartered it down from 1700 to 1000 INR, although that's only because I didn't want it. After that I am taken to a jeweler's shop but this time I'm having none of it so I just walk out. The sting in the tale is that he says I should pay him 950 INR for his services, which is pretty much extortionate. I explain to him that I checked the cost at the start, which he said was nothing, and so I capitulate with him at 500 INR, which I guess is still too much, but an improvement nonetheless.
Ironically when I arrive back at the hotel Raj takes me to another marble shop and I go through the whole process again. At least mum will look forward to her Christmas presents I guess. But I'm pissed off and let Raj know. He tells me it won't happen again but now all trust and honesty that I had with all Indians is pretty much down the drain, which is a shame given their reliance on tourism.
After that it's supper and drinking with just me and Raj. I hardly understand half of what he says. But this time round the Skinner connection sinks in: both he and I are Rajput, so I'm the same caste as him, which in Indian terms means that I'm pretty much his brother and he will do anything for me. I'm sure his word will last as far as any other Indian vow of honesty, but at least it's something.
As a way to celebrate we drive (while Raj is fairly drunk) to a very posh hotel. It's only the second place I've seen after the Indira Gandhi Memorial that isn't covered in dirt. It becomes pretty obvious that we shouldn't be there and the staff don't want us to be. Raj is oblivious and strikes up conversations with random people, including some Swiss who give him half of a 20 GBP cigar that they were smoking.
He wants me to ask the waitress for her number, but she's the one who doesn't want us there, so it's not going to fly. I start to talk about how Indians are doing themselves a disservice by ripping off tourists but it only leads to a conversation about how Raj was ripped off by an American involved in a drug deal. I didn't fully understand what was going on (not least because I couldn't understand half of what he was saying) so I have to ask him to stop. Later he starts talking about someone in Jaipur who can assess my karma and I can buy an expensive gem that will bring me lots of luck and money and so on. Magical thinking at its finest. I tell him to stop right there and go no further at the risk of pissing me off even more. I think he gets the message.
It's such a shame that the ideas of trust and honesty are so alien to some Indians (others are only too helpful). It does their country a disservice, like Spanish racists, and at the end of it all only prevents them from achieving moksha at the end of the day.
When we leave the posh hotel Raj tries to get a discount for our bill on the promise of repeat service for the barman (and I think he knows someone who works there). They're not playing ball and he ends up paying the full bill. It's the first part of karmic retribution to hit him.
We return home and drink some more, and then go to sleep.
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