Chapter February 23 "The Journey Begins"
So there we were in Delhi with fresh bikes, a carload’s worth of gear, and no idea what to expect . The plan was to get up early and get out of Delhi by 6:00am, thus defeating the horrific traffic by missing it altogether. It was a tactic derived from a story my grandfather once told me, "I only lost one fight, and that was when I slipped as I was being chased around the corner. " The best way to beat it is to avoid it.
That morning we got up at 9:30am -- there went our plan that to get up early! Ok, so it was a little later than we wanted, no big deal, we're flexible. We were on the road about an hour and a half later and handled the Delhi traffic with no problems. Amazingly, once you're in the traffic it really isn’t as bad as it looks from the street or from the back of a rickshaw. On a motorbike, you suddenly move up a couple of notches on the "traffic food chain", so to speak. Traffic in India seems chaotic and while that is probably a very accurate description, there is an underlying flow to things. I think Nietzche had it right when he said, "Out of chaos comes order " (also proclaimed by Olsen Johnson in Blazing Saddles.) Anyway, we were finally out of Delhi and on our way to Agra, 208km to the south on old National Hwy 2, otherwise known as the "Grand Trunk Road" (Grand Funk Railway.)
The road was busy but very nice, with two car lanes and a motorcycle/ anything-else-that-moves lane heading south. We were even able to reach a cruising speed of 65km/hr (39mph!) Along the way there were many roadside food joints and fuel stations, so all our needs were covered while on the road. We decided to go into Agra just to get a peek at the 8th wonder of the World: the Taj Mahal. We had discovered from other travelers that just 2 months ago the entry price increased from $3 to $20 for foreigners, while Indians paid only 25Rp (about $.50!) Talk about racial discrimination, ehh? The traffic in Agra was, well, unpleasant. We crawled our way to the Taj, looked around from the river/open-sewage-floodway for about 5 minutes and said, "let’s get on, going on." We still had 57km to our destination, Fatehphur Sikri. Off we went into the setting sun on a small but decent road. On either side of the road laid beautiful stretches of farmland, workers tending to their fields of green, and semi-fresh air. The road itself was nice, but it was to be shared with the most bizarre obstacles, well, bizarre for what we're used to in the West, that is. There were camels, tractors, trucks, cars, other bicycles, motorbikes, cows, goats, sheep, dogs, people, and on and on. Just as in every other country, everyone seemed to be heading home at sunset time, 6:00pm…kind of a rush hour of sorts. We arrived in Fatehphur Sikri without incident and immediately pulled up to a very nice hotel, Hotel Goverdhan, found excellent parking and a beautiful courtyard…with GRASS...and beer!!! We got a very nice room for a couple dollars and enjoyed a couple days in relative peace.
The small town is quite nice, with the main attraction being the great abandoned Palace of Jodh Bai and beautiful mosque of Jama Masjid. The famous Mughal (Muslim) leader, Akbar, built this place to be the new administrative capital in 1571. The city and palace were only occupied for 14 years and then were abandoned. It looks like it was built yesterday, partially due to the high quality sandstone used in its construction, but mostly due to the amazing detail and attention in the architecture, which can be epitomized by the intricate carvings found throughout the palace. It was truly an amazing place. Here, also, they raised the entrance fee to $10 USD! Well, that amount of money pays for one or two days of living for us, so we said "to hell with that." We did get a chance to see the inside of the palace, however, as we found the fortress walls to be not quite so "impenetrable"!
