First days on a route

And the final day had come: takeoff, we want it or not! ;)

Saturday morning, we had a farewell breakfast with Nata, our helpful companion and good-word spreader. We got gadgets, for a safe and lucky journey whenever the wind (and fuel) takes us to. So backup'ed with the holy-neclaces/bracelets from Himalayas, a few polish sweets and a good word ;) we set off down to Agra, for our first over 200 km's ride.

It turned out to be 230 km and this distance took us about..6-7hs to get there, finally and again after dusk. We had to look for a place to stay and after a few blind shots I found a guest house about 800m away from Taj Mahal where they offered us a room for 300 rupees (3,5£/ 18zł) with hot water (that they brought after 15mins in a huge bucket :D), a pretty good start I would say.

Enough for us at least and perfect location to visit Taj in the early morning, as we planned. The next day (Sunday) after early wake-up at 6:30 (we hit the hay pretty early, but because of some wedding and a whole incredibly loud procession along the street -till midnight, it took us – or me at least – a while to fall asleep, even with the earplugs that I don't get separate with) we headed for the most magnificent masterpiece of indian architecture. It's supposed to be the time with less crowds, so it was, but there were still loads of ppl getting there like a wave, flooding the entrance stairs more and more every time.

After Taj we headed to Fatehpur Sikri – the goast-town, lying nearby, to see its beautiful ornaments, a huge gate to the palace and the whole facility in general, which was meant to be a prosperous town but it only survived for 100 years, because of lack of water. People moved out leaving behind a fabulous complex of buildings, temple and the marvelous palace, with plenty of space for Maharaja to have fun and laid back. The only thing that completely got on my nerves were people around – not tourists though but indians, trying to get money out of you on every corner, for everything, being not even just annoying, but pushy and repetitive. To much for me. They invite you to put a bike at one place and, obviously, there is “no problem” and when you come and don't want to pay them for “watching it over” they tell you it's forbidden to put a bike ther, just for indians. Haha, bullocks. I didn't pay a penny, because it was a normal parking and told them will call the police better to make sure that's really not allowed to put a bike in front of the monument for foreigners. Nobody said a word, and those two cheeky “security-officers” neither.

It's how it is, unfortunatelly, on every corner you have to deal with people poking you for money, to look after your shoes (even if when leaving them nobody said anything about any charge), for a donation (they look touched if you put too little, certainly), for taking a picture or chasing you with useless silly things that you surely don't want.

Anyways, woosaaah, let's try to keep calm and get used to refusing all the time otherwise they will eat you alive!