3 weeks backpacking India: Agra

My stop in Agra was because even though I wasn’t much interested in see Taj Mahal , the most of the people told me that I should visit if I was traveling India and I was going to be around it, so they convinced me to go and visit it.

Hotel

When I got up in the morning after I reached it the previous nigh, I wanted to check Internet because I couldn’t do it at the time I had arrived.

I asked them for the password of the Wi-Fi and I went upstairs; but there was only a patio with doors to several rooms, so I had to sit on the floor as there wasn’t any other option, however that wasn’t the main issue, the big issue was that Wi-Fi signal wasn’t strong enough and my devices couldn’t connect.

I complained about and they told me, “now it isn’t working, it will work later”, so I started to think that they were cheating me.

The hotel was cheap, but more expensive than Delhi one, besides I had to pay double because they didn’t have rooms for a single person; but the cleaning conditions and the embarrassing service deserved my rant in this post.

The room was quite dirty, I don’t complain about old or quality and either if it hadn’t been very clean, but it was so dirty, as dirty that could swipe the table of the room with a white tissue and it became black, the bathroom was disgusting, but not only the toilet and the sink (in India not showers the same bathroom is a shower), the buckets which were supposed to be used to take a shower were insalubrious and you couldn’t avoid to use them because the pipe of the shower to drop the water over you was broken besides there wasn’t hot water, something that’s not very important as the weather was hot but it was another point to see how bad the treat their clients.

But those were all, the hotel is a restaurant and the door of the room was in the eating area, quite noisy if you want to sleep early around 21.30 as I did the second nigh, but also during the night and early in the morning around 4am they started to put music and make noise as in the middle of the day.

So it’s terrible, a hotel can be cheap, but keep a few minimum things, as Delhi one, if it doesn’t have all the minimum, at least a few them, but this one didn’t have any at all, it totally was a piece of crap.

Don’t do my same mistake so don’t never book any room there.

As I thought after all the excuses that they gave since the beginning, Internet never worked, I asked at least 7 times, during the day, and the last reply was that they were fixing the wires outside and they couldn’t do anything, hence it was very clear that they cheated me in an embarrassing way all the time.

Taj Mahal

I went to Taj Mahal on my usual way, on foot.

I could see Agra through my way and started to confirm what a few backpacker had told me; in Agra there isn’t anything to see than Taj Mahal and maybe 2 iconic places more, the rest of the city is very ugly.

I visited Taj Mahal as I already knew, they charge to foreigners at least 10 times more; moreover around the entry there are people around selling lots of useless stuff, however I found that was even _worse the tourist guides which carry an identity card to be identified as official professional of the government tourist office, who are trying to sell their private tourist visit or carry you to a shop where you can leave your bag as alternative to leave it in the cloak, mentioning at the same time with a similar identity card that the shop is from the government; as you can image, it’s pure bullshit.

Being honest, Taj Mahal is alright to see but I didn’t feel that it’s great monument, after I’ve visited a lot of European cathedrals and old big buildings.

End of the day

After Taj Mahal I didn’t want to visit the other Agra iconic places, as Agra Fort, so I was walking around, trying to find a place with Internet, I couldn’t find any, if there is some then they are a only a few and I couldn’t find them, so I got back to my shitty hotel to rest because my train to go Jaipur, the next day, was at 5.17h in the morning so I had to get up by 4h.

Conclusions

If you don’t have a main interest in see Taj Mahal, don’t go to Agra, it’s totally worthless, nothing to see and very full of tiring people trying to sell you things or services; in my case it was worse because I was in a very crappy hotel so I couldn’t get anything good from it and I wanted to quite as soon as possible.

Anything about it, drop a comment.