5th October : Leg 2 Day 2, Agra

Wild life at the Sikandra Fort..

The Comet and the Jupiter behind the Taj..


Ashish (on the right) and me at the Agra Fort..


Ashish, Sunil and me (at the end..) at the Agra Fort..


Ashish and me (right..). See the cam around my neck? Learning photography quite fast with the Canon 350D and the lenses incl the Fish eye one


We don’t remember the last time we got so tired, walked so much, sun-burnt our skin so much, drank so much liquid content, saw wonders of India, gave interviews to the press, relished on local foodstuff and stuffed ourselves to the brim, all in a single day. I am dead tired, but still on the laptop - yeah, the joys and sorrows of being on the GIR! And we still have 58 days to go…
The day started with a disappointment, for me that is. Blame it on my love for sleep, but I just couldn’t drag myself out of the bed and could not feast my eyes on the stunning Taj being lightened up gradually by the increasing luminance of the sun. Sunny did show me the pictures but I know these can never do justice to what the eyes can see. What’s worse, I missed seeing the Taj up close. How could I do this? Being in Agra for a day now and still I didn’t go to see the Taj? Anyways moving on, finally at nine I was outta the bed. My first morning in Agra started with some fried food – Bedmi Puri, Samosas and sweet lassi, the last of the three being the best thing. Ashish had come back to give me company for breakfast and after that we moved on and met the Sunny, Sunil and Abhishek, our angel in Agra, at the Agra Fort. Initially before entering it, I thought what the heck, this will be just another fort. With buses, cars and jeeps, small food shops, hackers and what not lined up outside the fort, I was in no mood to spend even a single minute there but after being inside for like hardly a minute, my perceptions changed! One must visit this massive complex for its magnificent architectural styles, a rare combination of the aesthetic sensibilities of three different Mughal kings. The fort in its time was like a city on the inside, with many buildings, streets and shops. The entry fee is Rs 20 for Indians, Rs 250 for foreigners and is open from sunrise to sunset. By the time we were done seeing the whole of the majestic fort, we were all dead tired and wanted to zip back to the comfort of ours rooms, but before that we met with a guy from Bangalore, who was in Agra with his family for a visit. He saw the GIR on some newschannel weeks back and was all excited to see the team here in Agra. After a couple of pictures, he wished us for the ride ahead and left. I was awfully hungry and Abhishek took us for a sumptuous lunch at Capris, one of better restaurants in the area, where a 60 kph (a Royal Enfield biking club) member saw us and interacted for a while.
The gang headed back to the hotel while Abhishek and I went shopping for rear view mirrors for the Jupiter and duplicate keys for all the machines, which unfortunately couldn’t be made. By the time we got back to our rooms, it was time to head again to the Sikandra fort as local media guys were coming there to cover us! After we were done with them, three of us (Ashish was back in the hotel) rushed inside the fort to catch a glimpse of the Mughal complex which holds the immense tomb of Akbar and is surrounded by vast gardens where we spotted tens of Deer, Monkeys, Antelops, Cranes etc, all living in a peaceful harmony. As it was closing time, there were hardly any visitors around and the calm of the place and the serene interactions of the animals took me in. Visitors are not allowed to step down from the wide stone platform, which connects the entrance chamber to the dargha, into the huge gardens where the wildlife roams around but how I wish I somehow could walk right into it. Imagine yourself in some forest surrounded by monkeys, deer and antelopes. Anyways we were running out of time and managed to get into the dargha, which has Akbar’s mausoleum, just a couple of minutes before it got closed!
It was back to our room for our daily homework- loading hundred of pictures, editing and deleting them, writing blogs and preparing for the day ahead. Sunil went and got duplicate keys made while Ashish went out with Abhishek to fill his belly with local delicacies and Sunny and I are working overtime on the laptops. Today was a very tiring but a productive day and tomorrow we head to the pink city of Jaipur via NH-11, a ride of around 230kms. We do intend to stop over at the Fatehpur Sikri for a couple of hours. Our technical guy, Vinayak jee joins us tonight and we are all ready to enter Rajasthan.