Elsien's Traveblogue

I've escaped Agra, Ali and the touts. First of all the good news: The Taj Mahal is indeed as amazing and beauteous as you'd ever imagined - even better from close up, quite overwhelming, in fact. However perfectly beautiful, I preferred the Agra Fort though, as it is much more of a historical and architectural jigsaw: started by great-great-grandfather Babur on the foundations of older fortifications, continued by great-grandfather Humayun, then grandfather Akbar, then Father Jehangir, then son Sjah Jehan (Mr Taj Mahal) who died in it, emprisoned in it by grandson Aurangzeb who finished it - please applaud my recent knowledge of the great Moghul rulers! The architecture reflects the stories behind it - there are many more, even some British Colonial ones to go with a tomb of some British hero who was killed there in the 1857 Mutiny. There are other beautiful places in Agra and my hotel, Hotel Maya, was nice, clean and with plentiful hot water (no BBC World though, but it did have HBO so I could continue my James Bond viewing).
The bad news is that Agra must have the most annoying and persistent touts in the world. I thought Egypt was bad, but then Connaught Place in Delhi beat it hands down. However, the Agra touts would easily make mince meat out of all of them. I couldn't even cross the road to the Internet Cafe without being literally laid siege to by a dozen touts, beggars, rickshah wallahs, postcard sellers, miniature of the Taj Mahal sellers, kids wanting chewing gum, chocolate, pens or just '10 rupees' and so on, and so on. And talk about persistent ...
I was partly saved from all this by Ali, a 'proper' auto rickshaw driver who took me to Hotel Maya when I arrived and took me around the sights the next day for a very reasonable price. The only problem was that he seemed to be developing a more and more serious crush on me - he started to appear to have a cup of tea with me or just popped by to see how I was or invited me to share an Indian whisky with him and his friend on the rooftop of Hotel Maya (he was supposed to be a good Muslim, who went to pray in the mosque on Fridays and had 6 children). He started touching my arm and my leg when talking to me and even got to the 'my wife doesn't understand me' stage: the wife had left him 4 years ago and was now living with her father, only going out dressed in complete black get-up including face veil ... modern marriage Muslim-style? Anyway, Ali's last good deed was to recommend a hotel here in Jaipur, run by a rather wild Australian red-head called Maggie (are Maggies always wild or only in my experience?) and arrange for his cousin Abdullah to pick me up from the bus station and drop me at Maggie's - I hope I won't have to start evading Abdullah now (Still, he's in his twenties and Ali was 52, small, skinny and with terrible brown teeth, Ali, not the cousin, - just my type, you'll say!).
I may stay in Jaipur for a while as I think I may have been invited to a wedding, but waiting for confirmation. While in Agra I met this very aristocratic Brahmin Freemason British educated Indian who used to be an Indian MP, even the Chair of the Indian Congress Party for a while. His daughter has started a school in Shanghai and his nephew is getting married here in Jaipur on 8th, and he invited me to the wedding - I believe it when he contacts me, but if he does, it would be a wonderful opportunity - Rajastan weddings are supposed to be something else.
So, life continues to throw up constant surprises - I wonder if I will yearn for a boring and mundane life soon?