Exploring Agra and Amarvilas

So the next morning after breakfast at our hotel I strolled down to rent a bicycle for the day to explore more of Agra's attractions. Sarah didn't fancy the exertion in the heat so I headed off on my own.

My first stop was a place known as the Baby Taj, which is a far smaller mausoleum than the Taj Mahal, but is also built of white marble and with similar beautiful inlay designs, and set in a similar muslim garden. From here I rode on along the river to another, more decrepit mausoleum after a quick detour to a nicely maintained garden (Ram Bagh).

Next stop was to ride around to a viewing point directly across the river from the Taj Mahal. There is a garden here too, but the views are better by just riding down the side of the gardens and walking out onto the beach. It was fantastic here (and completely free), as not only was I the only tourist, apart from 2 local kids messing about in the river, I was only person on the entire side of the river (there was a goat and a few cows too). So I hung around here for a bit, just soaking up the views,watching the tourists milling all over the Taj and just relaxing.

Back on the bike I rode back to Sarah for lunch, but she'd just ordered something at the hotel, so I stopped off at a much nicer place on the way back to the bike rental place and had a lovely thali there (Dasaprakesh Restaurant).

While I was cycling around the town (having the bike was fantastic, as even when the traffic is mental, it only crawls along, so you never feel in any danger, and I felt great freedom in being able to explore the smallish town at my leisure), Sarah had made a reservation for that evening at the Amarvilas Hotel, so at 6pm that evening we hopped in a rickshaw to Taj Ganj.

First we dropped into a few of the backpacker hostels in the area hoping to exchange some books for Nepal guidebooks, but to no avail (we did get 'The White Tiger' though, which seems to be the book everyone is reading here in India at the moment). At the gate of Amarvilas, the security guy didn't have our names on his list, but after a quick phone call we were let in.

The hotel sure is pretty impressive alright, but not amazingly. It's all marble and polished stone, with extravagant fountains in front, and an impressive pool area (that doesn't have any views though, and isonly 100 meters or so from the main road with all the beeping tuk-tuks and tinny Indian music blaring!). The small bar did have a great view of the Taj through it's large windows, so we had a couple of drinks here before heading down to the restaurant for dinner.

The menu was surprisingly inexpensive, although of course it was by far the most expensive meal we've had in India (about 4500 rupees including drinks). The restaurant itself didn't have any views, and anyway it was dark outside and the Taj isn't illuminated at night. The meal of shish kebab starter, Kerala Prawn curry and some lamb thing was very good although certainly not mind-blowing - we've certainly had tastier meals for a tiny fraction of the cost, but this place is all about location (and the kebabs were amazing I suppose).

So a cycle rickshaw back to our hotel after getting very stuffed and straight to bed. The next day we just hung around our hotel before getting a great lunch at the Park restaurant again. I wanted to get US dollars to pay for our Nepali visa, but this turned out to be a mayor headache. I tried 4 banks, but none of them could give me dollars (even the main branch of the State Bank of India's computer system was down, so they couldn't do anything - and this country has nuclear weapons!). A forex place told me to try again laterand he might have dollars, so I had to traipse all the way back there later, where thankfully he finally produced the dollars.

Other than that adventure, we were hanging aorund, using the internet and reading, basically waiting for our train toward the Nepal border that departed Agra at 10pm. We actually ended up walking all the way to the train station, as at 9:30pm the auto-rickshaws were thin on the ground, but it wasn't that far, and it was a cool evening.

Our train was only 20 minutes late (which is impressive, as it had come a very long way), and after waking up and kicking off the Indians that were on our berths I settled down to sleep straight away and had a good nights sleep (earplugs and eye-mask essential in this regard of course). 16 hours later we arrived at Gorakpur (only 1 hour late, which is again impressive), and after using the Internet for a bit and getting a quick lunch thali, we hopped on the bus to the Nepalese border.

I find it very hard to believe I've been in India now for weeks now, and hard to believe I'm leaving it. But it certainly is a major consolation to know I'm headed to Nepal, to-date my favorite place in all the world, so I just hope it isn't a case of 'never go back to relive your past'...