bicrom abroad

after the disappointment of jaipur, udaipur restored our faith in the beauty of rajasthan. our stay was peppered with vistas of sundappled fairytale turrets dreamily reflected on the lazily shimmering lakes which are so central to the city. the famous lake palace itself, whilst retaining a novelty value, was outshone somewhat by the palaces on the shores, sheer walls and finely detailed ramparts perched perilously over the water. moreover, whilst the narrow lanes of the old city were suitably chaotic, with feet and elbows under constant threat from manic autowallahs and young lads teetering on scooters veering around the inevitable cows in the road, it did not feel anywhere near as busy or congested as jaipur, retaining instead a certain meandering charm.
we took the obligatory boatride at sunset and spent a few hours wandering around the maharana's palace, resplendent with fine detailing and lake views; beyond that however we entertained ourselves happily mooching around the alleys doing very little beyond giving shopkeepers undue hope and photographing cows.
we also spent a lot of time appreciating the delights of our hotel. expensive it may have been but from the postcard views from our balcony, to the sometimes frighteningly attentive service, to the bar which was brand new but filled with enough olde paraphernalia to give it a vintage comfort (as well as mixing up a passion fruit chilli cocktail so spicy it made even me gasp), the leela palace was absolutely perfect: making the step back down to normal hotels in the next few days is going to be depressing.
as such, it was a slightly gloomy couple who checked out, waved on by a mindboggling array of staff (i think we had a leaving committee of at least eight people). a short night in a grotty hotel in delhi before heading off to nepal tomorrow for hopefully some five star himalayan views.

air india had stolen the best part of a day from us and it was jaipur that had to pay the price; we arrived as the sun was setting knowing that we would be gone less than 24 hours later. as it was, the time we had there was more than sufficient.
i'd always thought that the so called pink city was the jewel in rajasthan's crown but it seems very much the ugly sister to jodhpur and, in particular, jaisalmer. modernity has made no concession to the historical aesthetic, and the grubby orange walls and buildings look helplessly and forlornly over broad roads, fully stocked with cars, autos and the rest of the daily detritus india has to offer. the hawa mahal, the city palace were all fairly average when held up against their rajasthani peers and whilst the jantar mantar was amazing we were unable (amazingly, in a city famed for its aggressive touting) to find a guide who might fully elaborate on the astronomical wonders on display. not even the insanely hyperactive dog bounding around the haveli in which we were staying could fully redeem the city.
as it was therefore, we were not particularly disappointed that our visit to jaipur had been a flying one and eagerly boarded our plane to udaipur that evening. we had not actually booked a place in udaipur, thinking that our three night stay would make us every eager hotelier's dream and that they would fall over themselves to offer us plush haveli suites at discounted rates. not quite; every place we tried in our range was booked out, with our three night requirement actually proving to be more of a hindrance than a boon. udaipur was the final straw, the point at which we realised that totally spontaneous travelling, of turning up in a city on a whim and winging it, is dead, strangled by the internet and online booking. from now on we will have to join the hordes who plan their holidays day by day, months in advance. a little depressing frankly, but perhaps i'm lucky to only have to make this concession so late on in my life.
as it was, it was pushing 9pm in udaipur and we were stuck between cheap little holes and sumptous, expensive luxury. after much pondering we opted for the latter and checked into the plush, but exorbitantly expensive, leela palace hotel. more than we can probably afford but for three nights of the most romantic part of our honeymoon it felt like the right decision. looking out over our balcony onto the lake with the famous lake palace floating in the foreground and the city palace behind the decision seems utterly justified; let's see how we feel when the final bill arrives!

trying to love india is like being in an abusive relationship: having seduced us with four blissful days on the andamans it ruthlessly battered us with travel misery immediately afterwards. planning to fly from port blair to cal, cal to delhi and then get the train to agra that evening was always ambitious but we could not have envisioned how wrong it would go, nor how quickly.
i've always sought to avoid air india/indian airlines wherever possible, largely because they have always been perenially useless. as however they appeared to offer the only cal-andaman option i had booked our flights with them, naively presuming that the worst that could happen would be a sniffy air hostess or two. as we rolled up to port blair airport at 7am on friday morning for our 8.30am flight it became rapidly apparent that their incompetence could lead to far graver consequences. the flight was delayed - fine, these things happen. for how long? Who cares, but at least over four hours. any other information, maybe the odd update or reassuring word? go away, i'm trying to have a cup of tea. it wasn't just the delay (although four and a half hours for a two hour flight is absurd), it was the haughty, disinterested air of the  staff that was most frustrating. to my further dismay it became apparent as we waited, starved of information, that a host of new airlines were now serving the andamans, none of whose flights were delayed and all of whom had helpful staff buzzing around. we finally landed in cal just under five hours late and, obviously having missed our connection, were forced to buy new tickets to delhi costing twice the price of those which we had already bought. we found out later that the delays were not caused by fog or any other unavoidable malady, but rather because various air india pilots were striking. if anybody wants a cod economics lesson on the benefits of competition and the failure of mollycoddled untouchable state enterprises they could do worse than looking at air india over the next few years as it continues to be shamelessly humiliated by the new breed of young, dynamic budget carriers providing twice the service at half the cost.
unsurprisingly we arrived in delhi far too late to get to agra and feeling rather gloomy, so checked into a nice hotel to cheer ourselves up. a good night's sleep and breakfast buffet later we were feeling much chirpier as we headed out to get our train tickets to agra at delhi station. again the uneasy dichotomy of positives and negatives which permeate india shone through, with the excitement of our trip to come being undermined by deceitful touts trying all  manner of scams to extort money out of us as we elbowed our way to the ticket counter (via the international ticket bureau where we caused a minor diplomatic incident concerning a very british queue and a very angry russian). none of the scams worked on us, but we do pay a price of sorts. india is a country where there are millions of genuine people who are happy to help for the small price of a couple of sentences of conversation and a chance to talk to someone new. the constant sniping from the sleazy tourist-fed underbelly however means that we are constantly obliged to keep up a glowering wall of suspicion, with no mechanism by which to filter the genuinely helpful from the conmen. as a consequence, the opportunities to meet and interact with the locals have to be sacrificed to keep their avaricious countrymen at bay. all very frustrating but typical india; nothing can be simple if in any way it can be made to be a struggle.
the hassle continued apace when we arrived at agra station, with the prepaid auto rickshaw and taxi stands, a haven for tired travellers after long journies, fully subsumed into the scamming game. i saw two english kids get overcharged by the official government employee manning the taxi stand, who was clearly in cahoots with the local taxi mafia rather than regulating them in any way. still we had our arguments, got the right price and finally, wearily checked into a hotel and made our preparations for the next day, sadly questioning whether it could ever be worth it.
it was worth it. the reason that people put up with the shit that india throws at them isn't masochism; it's because as a country it has so much to see and offer. even the most cloying of overcharged taxi rides seem utterly irrelevant the first time that you glimpse the shimmering white taj, a glorious monument to fantasy and excess which, despite all of the expectations, did not disapppoint at all. we got there early in the morning and wandered around whilst it underwent its morning ablutions, waking up wreathed in mist before groggily shaking off its foggy shroud to stand gleaming and resplendent in the early morning sunshine. truly, truly amazing, and hopelessly romantic: i'm glad i waited until i had vicki before going to see it (despite her penchant for taking hundreds of identical photographs).
after the taj, fatehpur sikri was always going to struggle. an interesting red sandstone abandoned city, we wandered about happily enough but, in truth, my mind couldn't stop flicking back to the transcendent beauty we had witnessed in the morning. for anyone going to agra to visit the taj i would say go first thing in the morning then find a nice hotel room or bar and spend the rest of the day happily musing about it and letting the images wash over you. to squeeze in another monument straight afterwards is simply unfair: it's hard to see what could hope to compare.
a comfortable four hour drive later we were in jaipur. we had escaped agra without too much hassle and seen probably the most amazing building which i have ever visited; for all the unnecessary challenges we were still smiling.