Arrival in Agra

After 5 hours of pot holes, crazy multiple speed bumps (think of the short but high ones you get in supermarkets or multi-storey car parks and how annoying they are, these are 8 of them all together with the sole purpose to destroy all sign of suspension in the car), LOTS of beeping, superhuman abilities to avoid potentially fatal road accidents we arrived in Agra.  It had got dark by this point and the ‘beep for everything’ rule has been expanded to beeping and flashing of headlights, incase people’s hearing had gone down with the sun.  I thought the roads in Delhi were insane until we arrived in Agra.  Noone stays in lanes anyway so add darkness to that and you just get a complete jumble of vehicle lights forcing through in every which-way all beeping and flashing and following their own personal rules of the road which solely consist of one rule; ‘do what the hell you want’.  Unsurprisingly we had been in the city for less than 5 minutes when someone pulled through 2 lanes of traffic on the other side of the road and onto our side and drove into our stationary vehicle.  This must happen a lot as the drivers shouted at each other in Indian as they passed but the offender carried on on his merry way with no insurance exchange or even checking the damage he’d caused.  Our driver then got out of this car (still in the middle of a 2-3 lane busy road) and checked his car.  Swearing at an absent person was more pressing than taking 15 seconds to pull over onto the side of the road rather than running the risk of getting sandwiched between 2 vehicles leaving two shell-shocked Westerns in the back who were close to getting out and just running, screaming into the night.

We were worried as it was a front collision that it would have damaged the radiator and we’d be left without transport or, worse still, no AC!  Turns out he just damaged the light so we carried on and finally made it to the hotel by 9pm after leaving Delhi (185km away) at 15:30 that afternoon.

We don’t have seatbelts in the back but the driver has put a bolt through his to stop it retracting and it just hangs limp.  He doesn’t wear it until he comes into a city then he just throws it over his shoulder.  As it’s bolted it would have absolutely no safety benefits whatsoever so I guess he does that just to stop him getting a fine maybe but I don’t really understand his reluctance to be safe, especially in a country where there’s such a risk of head-on collisions.  I’d definitely feel a lot better if I could wear my seatbelt!

The hotel was nice and clean and the staff were very friendly and helpful.  They want to do everything for you but for a price.  One guy carried my bag up 3 steps then wanted a tip.  Here’s a tip, it’s your job as a bell-hop to do that.  Carry it up a full-flight and I might consider it but 3 measly steps just gets you a smile and a thanks, my friend.  They have no sense of social awkwardness either, or they just choose to ignore it. We asked for toilet roll in our room (as we have about 6 squares) and they brought it and 2 of them stood there waiting for a tip.  One for the execution and one for the supervisory element I presume.  Sorry bud but you’ve got to go above and beyond for a tip else I’d be tipping you for having sheets on the bed and glass in the windows too. 

As we’d been travelling pretty much solidly since 12pm the previous day and were still in the same clothes the shower was calling to me so I headed off for a nice warm shower and hair wash only to be greeted by a ‘shower’ (term used loosely) with 4 ‘jets’ of water (term used even looser) that could only be likened to a pinprick in a water balloon at best.  Cats could have happily held a ‘Cats against wetness’ meeting sat directly underneath it without noticing.  We also realized we had forgotten shower gel so my dream of a soapy warm shower had ran down the drain with the egg cup worth of water that had been expelled from the shower in the last 5 minutes. 

To top off the high quality bathroom facilities that we had Will had decided to challenge the toilet to deal with an oversized rusty submarine (plus the deadly western toilet paper) and the toilet had succumbed without a fight and was refusing to flush.  4 bucket of water down the loo later and it was still laying at the bottom of the bowl like a trophy to the triumphant beaver who had just felled a tree singlehandedly.  It was obvious by this point that our log friend was going to have to spend the night so we closed the lid and ignored it, praying the stench wasn’t going to creep through the wood of the door in the night. 

So our first day in India has been a definite experience!  We’re off to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise in the morning  which I’m sure will be amazing and no doubt we’ll adjust soon to carrying toilet roll, hovering over holes in the floor, car beeps will melt into ‘white noise’ and it will seem normal take evasive action to avoid hitting grazing cattle on a motorway.  Hey, we’re in India!