Back in India, back in the dust, the honking and the bad roads…sigh.

A Monkey in a Tree on the Side of the Road

When it’s time to go to sleep, it seems impossible to find a cheap hotel. So we ask a local if there is no cheap room to be found. The man offers to sleep in his garage, loaded with blankets. Just outside the garage, there are men sewing these blankets. The garage hangs full with dust and there is a lot of noise from the men who are sewing. After an hour, they knock on the door because they need something. Shortly afterwards we hear a rustling sound very close to our head. One look at each other and we knew…we decide to drive to the next town in the hope to find a cheap hotel there.
This city turns out to be Rampur. There, some young people ask us to take a picture with them, so we ask them to help us find a hotel. Eventually one young man invites us to his house and we gladly accept. We follow him to his house and it seems we are lucky again: it’s a wealthy family and we get a nice room to sleep. Before sleeping, we have a little chat with again a hospitable Muslim family.
The next morning we enjoy a nice breakfast and exchange our data. When we are ready to leave, they offer to escort us out of the city.

Our Hosts in Rampur

Outside the city we are driving on the first good road we have seen in India so far. Too bad, but after five minutes we have to take the exit and we are back on the Indian roads we are used to.
We arrive in Agra late in the evening. We hope we can get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal by night. We are lucky, we find a guest house for a cheap price with a roof terrace which offers a good view of the Taj Mahal.

View over the Taj Mahal from our Hotel

We ask the staff if we can go up to the rooftop to watch the Taj Mahal. Apparently this is not possible: to protect the white marble there are no lights shining on the morgue. It seems we arrived in Agra on the wrong day, there is a festival going on that lasts all night and the next day the Taj Mahal is closed for visitors because it’s Friday. The second night we are able to enjoy a restful night because the festival is over. The next morning we go to visit the Taj Mahal.
We leave Agra by noon and start our way to Udaipur.

The Taj Mahal is Really as Beautiful as they Say.

More info on www.wijzijnweg.org