© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

During our brief time in India we noticed that this seemed to be quite common, Indian families wanting to have photos of and with us funny looking white fellas! I wonder what becomes of the photographs they take of complete strangers when they return to their homes? We were both hot and sticky after walking round the fort for a few hours, so we got a taxi back to the hotel for a refreshing shower. We have never had so many showers, each one felt better than the one before, but the fresh feeling didn’t last for long.

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Shopping in Delhi was good, there were so many shops to browse. The Bazaars of Old Delhi were also very interesting, you could easily spend days walking round them. The streets that lead off of Chandni Chowk, running south of the mosque are home to the liveliest markets, each one dedicated to a particular trade. The bazaars are all huddled together in open houses or underneath awnings, where you can buy everything from fresh fish to huge candles. Chor Bazaar is behind the old ramparts of the Red Fort, on Sundays it springs to life selling second-hand and apparently stolen goods! Kinari Bazaar, called 'the street of incomparable pearl' is the place for jewellers. The shops there are full of bright wedding finery, grooms turbans, and garlands that are made using rupee notes. In October, the month of Ram Lila, the shop also sells props for the annual theatre productions, bows, arrows, swords, and fake heads depicting the evil nine headed King Ravana. Naya Bazaar on Khari Baoli, near Fatehpuri Masjid, is the sweetest smelling of the bazaars, selling spices and nuts, and dried fruits, delicious. Gadodia Market off of Khari Baoli, is where the wholesalers gather to weigh their various goods on huge old fashioned scales. We love spice, and the smells and colours there of the aniseed, turmeric, pomegranate, ginger, saffron, lotus seeds, and various pickles and chutneys made us want to buy everything. It all looked so good, it got our appetites going too. Other bazaars worth a look are the Chawri Bazaar, where years ago ‘dancing girls’ would look down to the streets below from the balconies and windows of the huge mansions, enticing the men to join them. Now the girls have been moved, there are shops selling copper and brass Buddhas, Vishnus, Krishnas, bells, lamps, ashtrays, masks and boxes, all typical souvenirs of India. The Kalan Mahal Bazaar is the place to go for intricate carved necklaces made using bone. Unfortunately as I was not feeling too well most days, we didn’t get to see all that Delhi has to offer. It wasn’t the usual culprit ~ Delhi Belly, that made me so unwell, it was the drugs I was taking. When we visited Kenya the anti malarial drugs we were prescribed had made me very ill, physically. We were taking them again on this trip, and unfortunately I was unwell again. But this time it was not so much being physically ill as feeling mentally unwell. This may sound severe, but we have read of several cases where members of the British armed forces, whilst taking the same medication, became so unwell that they committed suicide. So it wasn’t just me being weak, if the big tough guys of Britain's armed forces found it hard to cope, I guess it wasn’t surprising that I was so seriously affected. Apparently since this trip there is a replacement drug for the one we took that is supposed to be just as effective, but with the added bonus of far less side effects. I wish it had been available for me to take. The very first time I took this drug I had not had any side effects, I guess it’s just the luck of the draw, Richard was not really effected any of the times we took it. We did go out and about whenever I was feeling well though. After enjoying our visit to the Red Fort, we were ready for something else, we went to the Rail Museum.

The National Rail Museum

We visited the National Rail Museum, Shanti Path, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, and had a surprisingly good time. Obviously the Rail Museum would be a must see for train spotters. We are not train spotters or particularly interested in trains, but we had a really good time at the museum. The Rail Museum chronicles 144 years of the history of Indian Railways. One of its most popular attractions is the four wheeled saloon of Maharaja of Mysore, which is carved out of teak, gold and ivory. Once again because India was having a serious heat wave at the time of our visit, the Rail Museum was not exactly swamped with tourists. In fact apart from us two, we only saw two other visitors, a father and his daughter. The grounds at the museum were massive, sprawled over 11 acres, with an indoor gallery which houses various displays, exhibits, models, photographs, coats of arms and documents etc. There were over 100 life size exhibits displaying the glory of a bygone era. The Rail Museum was formally inaugurated on the 1st February 1977. In 1855 the majestic Fairy Queen rolled out for the East Indian Railway. The Fairy Queen is the oldest working steam engine in the World. It is credited in the Guinness Book of World Records, and also has a National Tourism Award. The train engines and carriages are all displayed outside in the open. We were free to wander round the grounds looking at everything close up. It was interesting to think that we were seeing so many years of the history of railways in India. Another interesting piece was the Vice regal Dining Car 1889, still in working order. Also on display was the Prince of Wales Saloon 1875, the Maharaja of Mysore’s Saloon 1899, and the Maharaja of Baroda’s Saloon 1886. The interior of these royal saloons were definitely worth a look, to see the splendid elaborate interior design. There was a toy train that ran around the grounds on a miniature rail track. The father and daughter we saw, were sitting on it at one point, and the driver tried to get us to go for a ride, but without having a child with us it didn’t feel right! I wouldn’t have thought we would have enjoyed visiting a train museum, but we both thought it was a good day out. We didn’t want to stay too long in Delhi, as we were both looking forward to visiting the Taj Mahal. So we caught a train to Agra.

AGRA

We had booked our tickets for the train to Agra. We arrived at the station early and tried to figure out which platform we needed. It wasn’t really obvious where we would be departing from. Eventually we asked a member of staff, he asked for our tickets and then he consulted the huge pile of papers he was holding, which contained hundreds of names. We had booked second class seats, these were the best available, there were no first class seats on this train. Eventually after lots of conversations with several of his colleagues, the man told us which platform we needed, and roughly where to stand. The platform was fairly busy but not packed. Most of the people were squatting down happily waiting for the train. The other passengers were mainly families who were travelling with large bags and overflowing boxes. There were a couple of young boys walking up and down the platform selling steaming hot cups of thick sweet Chai. We didn’t want any, nor did we buy any of the various fried snacks available, although they smelt lovely. The roof of the station had seen better days, most of it was missing, with just the metal frame remaining high up over the tracks. Climbing up on the frame were dozens of monkeys, occasionally they would come down on to the tracks looking for scraps of food. Our train was on time, each carriage had a piece of paper stuck onto the outside, with the names of the passengers listed on it. We scanned the list for our name, found our seat number, and boarded the train. We located our seats and settled in. The seats were surprisingly comfortable, with good thick, springy bases. The train was not as dirty as we thought it would be, it wasn’t clean, but then neither are the trains in the U.K. Agra is about 200km from Delhi, so we tried to get some sleep, hoping the journey would pass quickly. I don’t remember much about the view as we travelled to Agra, as thankfully we did manage to sleep for most of the way. We arrived at Agra Cantonment Station, one of the six railway stations in Agra. As we expected, the station was very busy, we made our way out to the front of the station and were immediately approached by a couple of auto rickshaw drivers. We picked the best looking one, rickshaw not driver! We told him where we wanted to go and agreed a price. We sat in the back together with our bags squashed between us. The driver was in front of us, as he set off he suddenly stopped and shouted at a couple of young girls, they were reaching in behind us trying to take our bag! They ran off smiling and waving to us. The driver sped off into the fumes of the traffic. As the auto rickshaw was open sided it was a rather smelly journey, although we enjoyed whizzing in and out of the traffic watching Agra flash past before our eyes. Eventually we arrived at our accommodation. We had chosen the cheap and cheerful Hotel Sheela, East Gate, Taj Ganj, Agra, Uttar Pradesh. Apart from being excellent value, the main reason we had picked this hotel was its location, it was practically next door to the Taj Mahal. We had also heard that it served good food too, mainly vegetarian, and delicious fruit and nut lassis. The hotel was busy and we hadn’t booked ahead, but thankfully they had a room for us. The garden at the Sheela was very pretty and the restaurant/cafe looked clean.

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