Agra and the Red Fort

Our guidebooks warned us about rickshaw drivers taking tourists to 'similar sounding' hotels, and so I was pretty wary when we arrived at the Tourist Rest House in Agra. It turned out to be the right place though, and we got a nice room, although very small, for a great price (200 rupees a night).

I'd chosen this hotel as one of the guidebooks (the Rough Guide), indicated bicycle rental nearby, but yet again, the book was wrong (or in fairness, maybe just out-of-date, as places close down or move all the time of course). So after another futile search for bikes we had to get a rickshaw to the train station to book onward train tickets. Sarah had gotten talking to a German girl, Anna, who had booked a train ticket with an agent the day before, but hadn't received any ticket or confirmation, but of course she had paid in full. She was now a bit worried about it, as she couldn't remember where the agency place was, and she was due to return that day to pick up her ticket. I was sensing that this girl was a bit clueless, to say the least, but Sarah took pity on her and so we decided we'd try and help her sort out her ticket.

So the 3 of us shared the rickshaw to the train station. Firstly I got tickets for myself and Sarah towards the Nepalise border, and then I tried to see if Anna had a reservation. Of course she had no ticket number or anything, thinking her name might be enough to check the reservation system, which of course it wasn't (although you have to give your name when booking train tickets, the operators rarely input that information, instead just noting your age and sex - which is used by the ticket inspectors onboard the trains to ensure you are the right person). Obviously there was nothing the operators could do for Anna, and so her only option was to try and find the agency where she'd made her booking (the agency had been recommended by the girl's rickshaw driver, I mean they're TAXI DRIVERS for god's sake - you can probably see why I thought she was just a bit 'clueless' now!).

All Anna could remember about the agency was that it was 'near' the Red Fort, which is also where the train station is, so all 3 of us start walking around the perimeter of the huge fort hoping this girl can remember where the booking agency is. We circumnavigate the entire huge fort, but of course she never finds it. With nothing left to do she goes back to the train station to try and book a ticket directly (with Sarah helping her), while I have to traipse around the nearby bazaar looking for an ATM (and needing to cross a bridge over the train tracks that was inhabited by a huge troop of monkeys!).

My original plan had been to visit the fort after we got our train tickets, so I headed there while Sarah tried to help Anna (after all the walking we'd done around the fort perimeter Sarah didn't fancy more hours walking around inside the fort).

When I met Sarah later that evening it turned out that Anna couldn't book a ticket at the station as the train was now full, and so she had returned to the hotel with Sarah to try and get them to help. I don't know what happened to her in the end as we didn't see at the hotel again, so hopefully she got everything sorted out, and hopefully she learnt her lesson too. What was surprising was that she'd been in India 2.5 weeks already, but had ever gotten a train before.

Anyway, the fort was fairly impressive and certainly made for a very pleasant few hours strolling about. There were great views of the Taj Mahal in the distance too, which just whetted my appetite for getting up close and personal with this Indian icon that we planned to visit early the next morning.