to Agra: first glimpse of Taj Mahal

March 27, 2016

We awoke this morning to rumbling thunder in the distance. A light sprinkle, gone by the time we finished breakfast in the hotel restaurant and headed out. Another short day, Rachel's kind of cycle touring!

The first 20kms was quick, we stopped to watch 4-5 male peacocks and 6-8 female peacocks in a field. Then the quiet rest ended soon after taking off again as the toll road ended. The shoulder is gone, the smooth asphalt is gone for the next 10kms as traffic builds. Somewhere along here we passed the 15,000kms mark.

Then we reach the outskirts of Agra. Patrick navigates us around the city center. We are stopped at a railroad crossing and pull off to watch the mayhem. Traffic lines up completely across both sides of the road. Once the train passes and the traffic settles back to only chaos, we continue on into the city. There is a bike path of sorts at one point until there was a vendor set up at one end blocking the path. We are very close to our hotel when a man in a blue shirt on a motorcycle stops. He points to the patch on his shoulder indicating he is tourist police. "I shall help you" he says "Where do you go?" Patrick tells him and he leads us to Hotel Kamal, though at this point we knew where we were. We have arrived too early, the room still being cleaned. The staff is very accommodating and soon we are settled in and go to the rooftop restaurant for a bite to eat and our first view of the Taj Mahal.

We have been talking about our route in the Himalayas and beginning to think we would like to spend more time there. We would go around Manali and cycle in the Spiti Valley needing for us to save a couple of weeks at this end. Rachel has wanted to experience Indian Trains, in 1993 Patrick cycled Agra to Varanasi, so to save these weeks, we decided to take the overnight train to Varanasi on Tuesday. Patrick spends the afternoon figuring out how to do that. Took a few times talking with different travel agencies and the reception guy of the hotel, taking a tuk tuk to the train station to talk with the baggage people about the bikes, then returning to a travel agencies to buy the tickets.

Dinner was down the street at another rooftop restaurant with a beautiful view of the Taj Mahal. We had spaghetti and macaroni, perfect for cyclist and not something we've had for awhile, watching the sunset and the light change on the buildings and listening to the call of prayer.

Tomorrow, early morning start to queue up at the ticket office for entrance to the Taj Mahal.

We are surprised we don't see more scenes like this along our way. Despite the idiotic driving habits we have only seen a handful of crashes.

On the outskirts of Agra, contemplating the next 10km into the heart of the city.

We have a short delay at a train crossing. On both sides of the barriers traffic lines up the full width of the road. Everybody is jockeying for position, ready to take off when the barriers lift.

Then total mayhem. The barriers lift and the opposing traffic streams meet in the middle. Everything grinds to a halt, then slowly trickles through. Don't these people realize that things would move more smoothly and surely faster if everyone just sticks to their side of the road?

We see a bikelane in Agra. Looks like it was designed though by ACHD traffic engineers...... Just kidding.

View over the Taj Mahal from a rooftop restaurant.

The Taj Mahal. Too bad the minarets are encased in scaffolding, but we are here.

Today's ride: 41 km (25 miles)
Total: 15,016 km (9,325 miles)

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