An unplanned journey on a bus.

Sunday 13 November 2016 – Delhi, India – Part 2.

Back at the homestay I had a long conversation with the owner, Faiz, about my finances, the money I transferred from my NZ bank account into his had not yet arrived, which I had anticipated would be the case. In the end we swapped contact details and he will let me leave this afternoon even if the payment hasn’t arrived. This is a wonderful gesture that I very gratefully accepted. This was the cause of a bit of stress this morning as had no other way of paying him and no-one has any idea when the money situation would be resolved, weeks probably. At least I could move on. Thanks Faiz, you have reminded me there is good in this world!

My tuk tuk driver was as reliable as ever and picked me up as agreed at 11:00 and we went to see the ‘Baby’ Taj.

The ‘Baby Taj’s real name is the Tomb of I’timad-ud-Daulah and is regarded as a first copy draft of the Taj Mahal, being completed in 1628, four years before the Taj Mahal was started. It also marked the transmission between architectural styles; from the traditional red stone to the new cleaner white marble. I’timad-ud-Daulah was a Persian Emir in exile in India and was the grandfather of Mumtaz Mahal, who the Taj Mahal was built for. It too is on the bank of the River Yamuna.

With my finances sorted, at least for the day, I am still broke, but not worrying about paying Faiz was a weight off my mind, I could enjoy my brief time here, it was also significantly more peaceful than its more youthful sibling up the road.

It is a lovely looking building, essentially the same from all sides, inscribed white marble for the mausoleum and red stone for the out buildings.

I also took a couple of photos up and down the river, the air had cleared a bit since the early morning, plus we are a bit further away from the centre of Agra where the air is at its worst. As in so many poverty riven countries the river, no matter how filthy it is, is used to do laundry, wash people and a public toilet.

I enjoyed walking around and investigating the place, I would liked to have taken a guide as I was listening to some other tourists guides and it seemed like there are a few interesting stories to be heard. Finances dictated otherwise.

A place worth visiting if you are in Agra.

I took my tuk tuk back to the guest house and had an early, final lunch before bidding farewell to Faiz and profusely thanking him yet again for his help, his loan and for letting me leave without the money hitting his account. (It has now and everyone is happy!).

And that was the end of Agra – and the rest of the day pretty much turned to shit after that.

I got to the station really early, I didn’t want to linger awkwardly at Faiz’s so I arrived at the station about 1:30 for my 2:20 train to Delhi. Except it was delayed by 4 ½ hours and was not due to arrive here until after 6:00pm. This was a potential issue, a potential big issue. I was relying on my train arriving at New Delhi station with enough time for me to be able to get the metro to the airport as my hotel was near there. I had barely enough money to get from the airport to the hotel as it was. There was no way I had enough to get from the station. Not knowing what time the metro finished on a Sunday and with a minimum 5 hour journey from Agra I started looking for alternatives.

Naturally in any train station in India, there is someone nearby with an alternative. A man suggested the bus, 6 hours to Delhi, 300 rupees for a non-AC and one leaving in 25 mins. I took it… He took me to the bus station, for a pretty good rate, I am sure he got a good kick back from the bus company, and I was sitting on the filthy 2:00pm bus to Delhi. It was full. It took six hours. Six, dusty, dirty, swaying, bouncing hours. I slowly got more and more stressed as the day went on, as the light disappeared and I had no idea how far away from anything the bus station was. It was not a pleasant trip. To be fair, it was far from the worst bus trip I have ever taken, and if it wasn’t for the money thing it would have been fine. It was never going to be fun though!

We arrived at the bus station in Delhi about 8:00pm. Thankfully the pollution in Delhi was not at the levels it was when I arrived and it was merely bad. I was jumped on by tuk tuk drivers before I even left the bus and was quoted 400 rupees to the nearest metro station. I showed them the content of my wallet which had 280 rupees in it and got a 200 rupee ride…

I still had no idea what I was going to do, or how much the metro to the airport was going to be, or what I would do once I got to the airport. I knew that from New Delhi Station the ride to the airport would be 60 rupees, so I was praying the ride to that station would be 20 rupees or less. It was 12 ! Yes !! I could have kissed the ticket man!

The Delhi metro is fantastic, clean, efficient and fairly straightforward to work out, no worse than the one in Valencia anyway. I arrived in Delhi Station about 8:30 and was wandering around vacantly trying to find my platform. I spotted an ATM with a big queue at it, a queue was a good sign, most of the ones I had seen had no queue – meaning no cash. I walked up to the queue, and the policeman at the front waved me straight in, effectively queue jumping like at the banks. I hated doing it, but was utterly relieved. I could only get 1000 rupees, but 1000 Rupees !!! it was like magic. The stress just fell off, if I did not have a heavy backpack on my back and a heavy camera bag on my front I would have jumped for joy.

The ride to the airport was a breeze, as was the taxi ride to my hotel, which cost 500 rupees. I would have been stuffed if I had not seen that ATM. In the end I made the correct choice, the last metro to the airport was 11:00pm, I would never have got there in time if I caught the delayed train.

The Hotel Aura is the most expensive place I stayed in India at 22pounds a night. It was also the worst. Don’t stay there people! Noisy, dirty and there was no hot water. I was craving a hot shower. It was 9:30pm. I ordered a beer and then went to bed, no dinner.

It was one hell of a day, but I made it to the final destination, as always !

Tomorrow doesn’t get any better…..