After breakfast, we walked along the main road that leads into our neighbourhood, the Friend's Colony which is very high brow and not very interesting unless you consider high cement walls interesting. So, we ventured out along the alleyway beside the main road to our hotel. This required dodging bikes and motorbikes and cars and trucks and the occasional cart pulled by a horse or cow. An underpass led into one of the people's neighbourhoods packed with people and houses and small businesses that consist of little more than a room separated by a counter. After purchasing water, we stopped in the local park to sit on the only bench shaded by a tree after the old guy sitting there left as we approached. He was dressed all in white with a matching white beard and turban. After five or ten minutes, another slightly younger, slightly taller version of the original bench sitter entered the park and stood close by waiting for us to leave. We cooperated.
The car we hired for Agra was Toyota that looked a lot like the Corolla. It was roomy enough but most important, it had a fantastic air conditioning. Our driver was a 30ish East Indian fellow with a slight growth of beard and a definite resemblance to a younger Omar Sharif.
The new toll road to Agra was smooth and wide and practically empty. Clipping along at 120 km/hr, his phone rings with the identical sound Laura Kinney's made in the movie "Love Actually" when her schizophrenic brother needs to talk.
He slowed to a near stop and then spit out the window with the kind of stream that chewing tobacco or betel juice produces but it's not. While driving, he awkwardly rips a small package in his lapsed then extracts crystals not unlike the powdery sour candy we buy at home. It wasn't his crazy brother on the phone. It was his boss. We were paying 6000 rupees for our ride to Agra. The boss told us that we could keep our car and driver all the way to Jaipur for 14,000 Rupees and he would drive us around in each of those cities as well. Nicola was listening from the back and when I turned, she gave me a little nod of approval. We would keep Hem Ray Singh as far as Jaipur.
Agra is a poor city in a poor country. Our driver tells us that they provide services for the surrounding agricultural industry that doesn't pay well. We were also told by our guide the next day that no industry is allowed in Agra because officials fear it will stain the Taj Mahal.
Our driver had some difficulty finding our hotel, Sai Home 2. Every couple of blocks, he'd stop someone else on the street to enquire as to its location. The streets were narrow and twisty and seemingly unplanned. To enter the neighbourhood where the home was located, we had to pass through a gate with an armed guard lounging in a chair just inside it. The community did not seem that affluent but everything's relative her in India.
Sai Home was gated with a marble courtyard, patio furniture, and two living spaces with couches and chairs visible through a large opening to the outside, one for the guests and one for the family. Our rooms were basic, one queen/king size bed, a small flat screen television on the wall, air conditioning and a small bathroom with a toilet and shower. Always liking a pre-dinner shower, I was disappointed to discover that there was no hot water. On the bright side, it cooled me down as the heat here is oppressive.
Nicola had read that the Sai Pan Rooftop Restaurant was supposed to have great views of the Taj Mahal. After getting directions from the owner, we headed for the downtown. We got as far as the turn right at the canal there was no way we were going to find this restaurant using the lonely planet's typically terrible maps. We passed a group of tuk tuk drivers who insisted we hire their services. One young lad even followed us for about three of four hundred metres before giving up. After 500 metres, we figured that there was no way we were going to find this place on our own. The $1.73 was well worth the money. The restaurant was located down a very narrow lane and up four or five flights of stairs through a hotel that would best be described as backpacker sketchy.
The restaurant was a narrow, two table wide affair to one of the most spectacular views I've seen in my life. The Taj Mahal was magnificent, ethereal, translucent like a finel and perfectly symetrical with its heavenly bounded spires slowed by the rounded domes at the top. We ordered three beers which were all 650 ml. and took an hour and a half to finish all the time admiring a view that I can only compare to going to the biffy in Namche Bizarre when the Himalayas appeared as in a dream after an entire of hiking in the rain. The view ended with a torrential downpour otherwise known as a monsoon. We sought refuge and dinner under a tarp the owners had rigged up that worked better or worse depending on where you were sitting.
Our tuk tuk driver was waiting when we emerged from the hotel two or three hours later. He had the same difficulty finding our hotel as our driver earlier in the day. We were looking forward to a little air conditioning. Even though the rooftop view was incredibly beautiful, it was also stifling hot. Unfortunately, such was not the case. Our electricity shut down as it would the next day so we would spend it outside in the bugs watching the television series, Top of the Lake, written and directed by the weird new zealander, Jane Champion.
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