Fatehpur Sikri is a massive palace complex built on a hill. Below the palace is the city of Fatehpur Sikri that housed the servants of the palace. The complex was built in 1571 out of sandstone quarried locally. As with the Taj, we had to park outside of the palace complex, then take a tuk-tuk ride to the entrance. It really wasn't that long
of a walk, and anyway, the palace is on a ridge and the tuk-tuk couldn't go up it with all of us. So the tuk driver took us to the a point where we had to walk up the switchback to the palace entrance.The palace is built entirely of sandstone, and not much marble. The sandstone from this area is porous and some of it was lighter red and almost white. The porous nature of the stone turned out to be a good thing, many of the paining on the walls were still visible. The grounds also had a kitchen quarters, which naturally, smelled like a public bathroom....
Joshua loved this palace. Lots of places to roam. Lots of staircases to go up and explore. All of the palaces have a hall for public audiences. However, this one was very unique :
As described elsewhere, better than I ever could : famous for its central pillar, which has a square base and an octagonal shaft, both carved with bands of geometric and floral designs, further its thirty-six serpentine brackets support a circular platform for Akbar, which is connected to each corner of the building on the first floor, by four stone walkways. It is here that Akbar had representatives of different religions discuss their faiths and gave private audience.
After exploring the palace awhile, the guide directed us to the massive open Friday Mosque co
mplex. We walked in through the royal gateway. The other entrance, the Buland Darwaza gateway, is massive at 177ft tall. Outside of this gateway was a small bazaar with people selling faded postcards, Taj models and other knick-knacks, with a view of the city below. A spectacular tomb, made of marble, was the focal point of the Mosque complex. To enter, you had to wear a covering over your head and wash up in the pool outside of the tomb. Several people were inside paying their respects to the tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti. The mosque was in some stage of repairs. Nets and scaffolding was set up. It looked like a restoration was going on. Next to the tomb was a large cemetery where an excavation looked to be in progress. Now, to get inside from the royal entrance, you had to leave your shoes with the shoe wallah. It was starting to become a pain to do this. All of the local Indians would carry their shoes around. But the guide, and his tipping nature, directed us to leave our shoes there with the wallahs. Upon leaving
the Mosque, Heather tipped the shoe wallah a 2R coin (for watching our shoes) and the shoe wallah looked up as if to say "What The .....?" The guide came in, pulled out his wallet and gave the wallah a few more rupee coins. The guide then said to the wallah something like "Those American (only part in English) ......" The guide had mentioned that it was a community based on tipping, and he continued to pass along rupees to everyone - from the tuk and buggy drivers (which we paid for) to the shoe wallahs (which we didn't need). That's fine. It was getting to the end of the day and we were getting tired of being swarmed by the faded postcards and the hands in our faces. We had our fill of Fathepur Sikri, and we were getting exhausted of seeing sandstone palaces, no matter how magnificent they were. So after paying the tuk 100Rs... for what....., the guide told us we had to have one; We were finally going back to Agra to hop on a train to Delhi. It was still early yet, we knew that we had a train to catch, and the guide was getting antsy; Either he thought that there was a chance that we could miss it if there was traffic on the highway back ? He mentioned that it could take 3 hours to drive the 30Kms. And it was starting to get dark. Knowing how there would be lots of interesting obstacles for the driver to encounter on the ride back, I think we were all thinking the same thing - it would probably be better driving back while it was still light out. As expected, it was pretty hairy at times : Bikes, bike rickshaws, tractors pulling wagons full of people, none of which had any tail lights.We passed a large procession of tuk-tuks in a barren field. They were at one of the two Natural Gas filling stations in town. The guide said that the line could go on for over a Km. But, they had plenty of company, there were cows in the field too, with people collecting dung for cow patty production and an expired amusement park ride that looked to have been forgotten.
The road into Agra was even more crowded than before. The food vendors were starting to creep into the road. People were walking all over the street going to the various stalls to buy meals, fruit and veggies. We also passed a part of town that made furniture. Large fallen trees were on the side of the road and workers were cutting them in parts, by hand. On the side of the road, next to the shops were wood tables, stools and chairs for sale, all "Hand Made". Another part of town looked to have old broken down computers and electronic components that people were rummaging through, sorting and deconstructing.
But before our trip to Agra could be complete, and with all of the towns temples and tombs closing, we had to go to a "Museum". We had 2 hours to wait for the train, how bad could it be ? This museum had jewelry, gems and rugs.... and jewelry encrusted rugs. It's kind of funny. They had pictures and autograph books of "celebrities" and foreign dignitaries that had visited this shop and purchased gems and rugs from them..... So, basically, guides have been taking tourists out to the Taj, then forcing them into shops for the past 100 years.
Finally, before going back to the train, we had a chance to wind down at the Gateway hotel. It was a really nice 5-star hotel and while we were there, a wedding party had shown up. Wedding were happening everywhere around the city. Large city blocks were turned into open fields for the celebrations. The driver told us that 90% of the marriages are arranged. He has one daughter and he only works "part time" - when the tourists are around for 6 months of the year - the other 6 months it's too hot or overcome by monsoon. He has to save up 3-4Lakhs (400,000Rs) and invite 1000+ people. All of the weddings are held in large venues and only on preconceived "lucky" days of the year - which are hopefully outside of the monsoon season.....
Our train was one hour late. And our driver insisted that we stay in the truck until it came. He said it was too dangerous out on the platform. We told him that we could hold our own, and excused him with a tip for driving us around. Joshua was exhausted and had fallen asleep in the truck.
Now for a few notes about the train station in Agra, it's 9-10pm :
A small girl in a school uniform with paint on her hands was looking over our shoulder trying to read our guide book, she would mumble something with a bit of a crazed look about her, and she smelled like fresh paint.
Loads of materials in large burlap sacks were on the Delhi bound side of the tracks. Coolies would jump off the platform and walk over the opposite side to drop this material for the South-bound train.
When a trains stops at the station, food wallahs would rush on-board to sell food, then rush off when the train starts to move again, sometimes they would jump off onto the tracks - better watch out for on-coming trains.
There are very few smokers in India. We rarely see anyone with a cigarette.
An infant was crawling around the platform and almost fell off the platform and onto the tracks - the father caught it just as it was going over the edge.
Very depressed looking women with lifeless babies begging for money and giving everyone the evil-eye.
Occasionally a couple of adults would come by to pester you, but you can easily shoo them away, the kids would attach to Joshua, sit at his feet and touch his feet.
There were a lot of Westerners around, and Indians too, waiting for the train. All of the beggars would get rupees from the people on the platform. However, when you start to pass out money, you attract 10 more to pass out to. One westerner rounded up all of the kids and was giving them food. A few adults looked like they were there with the kids, and sort of, looking over them.
The train ride back was in the dark. We couldn't see anything, except for an occasional fire in the fields. At the Delhi train station hoards of people were all over inside and out. The road was again like one big parking lot and the Large Sikh that dropped us off was there, at midnight, to take us home.
