Agra - Delhi and the Red Forts

After the Taj it was check in time again where we didn’t have a room. We lunched in our same sticky damp clothes and our free time was taken up waiting for a room, but that’s India. Anything can happen at any time. Don’t take things for granted – it will be alright in the end. Eventually it was off again to the Agra Fort with fabulous views of the Taj through intricate “windows” and just as magnificent. We had a shopping trip to the “mall” but not as we know it. We were treated (!) to a demonstration of the craft of inlaid semi-precious gems into marble, as in the Taj Mahal walls. The tables made here were only $20.000. So Lynda – no – you don’t have to arrange another overdraft!!!! It actually gave me a horrible feeling of de ja vu. After resisting the beautiful jewellery and encrusted clothes we were back in the bus to another “mall”. Number 1 bus pulled up after their fabulous visit to the other “mall”. Some turned straight around and out but others were captured.  We convinced the guide that another mall wasn’t on OUR agenda. We did manage 15 minutes, which Hoppy recalls as 30, at a real shop and managed to get some cotton trousers and nice top to wear that evening for a Classical Dance performance which was actually enjoyable, performed on a stage outside and including a free, very nice, Kingfisher  beer!

Next morning was a sleep-in; no wakeup call til 6.30. At 7.30 we left for our 4 ½ hour bus trip back to Delhi. Nice express road – all tolled of course, and some interesting views of the country side with cotton crops, wheat, rice, corn; and donkeys, buffalo, horses and camels; interesting hay/fodder stacks, cow droppings shaped into discs and built into patty stacks which resembled mud houses, for future fertiliser or fire fuel. Most houses were very rudimentary; wealthier farmers had a well for irrigation; all interesting.

In Delhi we checked in to the Sheraton again and after lunch had our tour of the city then onto our cycle rickshaw ride through the Old Delhi Market with stalls lining the narrow alley and overhead electrical wires to die for (literally). Apparently the local electrician knows exactly which wire goes to whose house – unbelievable! Another red fort, this one reminiscent of the Palace in Istanbul – beautiful. Our last call was at the peaceful gardens where Mahatma Ghandi was burned and where the eternal flame burns in his honour.

Home, food, and 12.30 am wakeup call for our flight to Dubai. We needed all that time for all the security checks at the airport before our 4 am flight. The most miserable 4 hours on  flight in my life, I was asked to change seats by various bods for various reasons; my seat was not by Hoppy; eventually where I ended up I froze. The blanket would have been better to have been made of newspaper, but, hey, I survived!!