Saturday 25 October

It’s a Saturday night, 9:30pm and I’m sitting in my hotel room, with my roommate Jeremy (aka Jezaulenko) kipping while I whack away at the keyboard. What’s wrong with me, I hear you ask? Well, there’s a few reasons why I’m here. In chronological order, they are:

- What happened last night;
- What happened today; and
- What is happening tomorrow.

Last night, after a feed at a great little ‘greasy spoon’ a short walk from the hotel, a few of us retired to the room of myself and Jeremy, easily the most spacious of all group members, for what has become known as a ‘monk session’. Old Monk is a dark rum we’ve found right throughout the country that sells for anywhere between 3.50 and 9 AUD for 750ml. Many a session has been had on this little gem, and many a hangover endured the following day. I’ve pretty much left it untouched until last night. It has been mixed with mango juice, lemonade, coke and a few others, although I don’t think it has been drunk straight by a large number. Combine this with the world-famous Moore music collection on this laptop, playing all possible requests, and it became quite a big session. A massive session in fact. Messres Moore, Foster, O’Kane and Banks lasted well past midnight and through one request by hotel management to turn the volume down just a few clicks (we took the most sensible action and closed the door instead). Big Pete and Sarge might have given it a fair old nudge too. The end result was that I was well and truly ‘flyblown’; I think I might have hit the pillow at 4:30am.

One smart thing I can’t recall doing is slipping a note under the door of Bumble and Mick, rooming just across the hallway, to wake us up before we missed the sightseeing bus in the morning. It was to prove a very very worthwhile move.

I was still drunk when I headed down to reception just before 9am. But I’m sure I’ve had lesser nights and woken up a lot worse than how I was feeling then. Which was a godsend seeing our itinerary involved two outstanding tourism opportunities, the 16th century city of Fatehpur Sikri, and the king attraction of them all, the Taj Mahal.

The Fatehpur Sikri city was an hour-long 50km bus ride west of Agra, although this was considerably longer on the return trip due to our bus breaking down. I probably didn’t have my full faculties with me at the city, particularly earlier in the visit, and the photos I’ve taken might be of more importance than they normally would be, but it was still pretty impressive.

We arrived at the Taj around 4pm and spent the remaining couple of hours until darkness overtook us taking it all in. It’s an awesome sight, particularly given it is located in a typically gritty, largely unattractive Indian city. It’s gobsmacking that this building was erected over 350 years old. And like many other sights and experiences, my feeling is that your true appreciation of it grows more and more as the days pass by since your visit.

The amount of people there was remarkable, although I suppose it shouldn’t really be a large surprise. Unfortunately it meant that there were few chances to get pictures with myself and the Taj the only two items within the frame. I think I’ve got plenty of good pics anyway.

Oh, and the third point listed above (tomorrow) refers to our 10am train trip back to Delhi, and then the battle that will be leaving the train station and heading to our hotel. Given our experiences on the trains and in Delhi on Wednesday it’s bound to be a little challenging.

Sunday 26 October

We’re now on the train to Delhi, hopefully with only just over 30 minutes of the 3 hour trip to go. Although the seat I’ve purchased is in class 3A (which stands for three tier and air conditioned), I’m sitting in the cattle class with Wisden (known as such due to is extensive cricket knowledge), Jeremy, Bansky and Brendan. I figured it was better to be here than sitting by myself up there, exposed to the seemingly infinite curiosity in westerners, particularly Australians, held by the locals.
The Agra visit was quite brief (3 days) but well worth a visit. Everyone knows of the Taj Mahal but there are a number of attractions there that should be included in the itinerary of any visitor travelling through this part of the world. Other highlights that we saw included the Agra Fort, just up the river from the Taj, Akbar’s Mausoleum in nearby Sikkandra, Mehtab Bagh and the previously discussed Fatehpur Sikri.

On of these, Mehtab Bagh, can probably be bracketed in the same sentence as the Taj Mahal as it’s an attraction only because it’s directly across the river from the Taj, around 300 metres away. We headed there late afternoon on Friday to watch the sun go down on the Taj and to play a game of beach cricket. Plenty of cracking snaps were taken, particularly in the freshly-cleaned Cats jumper (it was grey and navy blue after nine days of Subcontinent test cricket).

Another place that might be worth a look at, depending on which recreations take your fancy, is the Agra Club Golf Course. Run by the army, it is a reasonable track given the city it is located in, however its 5th hole has to be seen to believe. Picture three golf holes running roughly parallel. Between the first and second holes lay 150 metres of tall eucalypts and thick, ball-swallowing scrub, all situated in a deep gully. When the ball (eventually) crosses these, after at multiple shots, and arrives at the “second hole”, it is at a fairway which is not wide (imagine crossing an ordinary fairway) and has a ominous looking swamp on the other side of it. The green is on the other side of the swamp, in between which are a thick, tall row of trees which need to be cleared as well. Just to top it all off, one might need to have the cows which are grazing on and around the green cleared from it, before playing their final shot in.

I’m hoping that Google Earth might have an aerial shot of this because it’s simply like nothing I’ve seen before on a course.

I’ve never had the services of a caddy until playing at Agra Club but it was another different experience here. Although it was nice to avoid having to carry the clubs, especially as the weather warmed up, the caddies did seem to cheat for us a little in the time between them arriving at the supposed location of our ball and us arriving at the same location. They were a little hopeless too in their duties but, as I’ve mentioned before in an unrelated topic, you do get what you pay for. Our lasting memories of this place might also be warped by the dramas we had in paying at the end of our round for green fees, ‘hired’ golf balls, hired clubs and our caddies, in which there seemed to be money that went mysteriously missing from the hands of one of the staff members. Maybe it got lost in his pocket. We were seriously outnumbered at the time, as it appeared that we were the only players on the course all morning and all staff members were present, but we were still able to show strength, give the staff what we thought was necessary/reasonable and hastily strode off.