Bāgchi

Yet another bright (?!) and early start. The canters delivered us to the local railway station at Sawai
Madhopur Jn - rather apt we thought. The enormous train arrived on time (British Rail eat your heart out) , our reserved seats were ready and waiting and I’m tapping away to you seated in comfort, lots of leg room with the Rajasthan countryside flicking past at a rate of knots. We ate our packed breakfast on the way and I think of Michael Portillo and his various Indian train journeys! After two and a half hours we arrived at Bharatpur our destination and were met by our driver and the coach, who had departed the night before with our luggage to make the train journey easier. Incidentally ‘pur’ means city. We travelled for about an hour to Fatehpur Sikri another world heritage site. Here we hit traffic. There had been a Sufi Muslim festival further north and coach loads of pilgrims were returning to Delhi and were of the same mind as us, stopping off at Fatehpur Sikri. You have never seen anything like it. Dozens of coaches loaded to the gunnels with people and luggage, clothes hanging over and out of the windows. There were cooking pots, brilliantly coloured toy horses, children’s bikes and toys, bags of presumably more clothes, all precariously resting in the shallow luggage rack on top and amongst it all more people, with not a seat belt in sight!
When we eventually made it to Fatehpur Sikri we found an ancient city built entirely of local red sandstone and in an amazing state of preservation. The Mogul Emperor Akbar 111 built this city in the 1570s. He considered this a lucky site, as it was here that it was predicted that he would be blessed with a long awaited son and he was. Akbar spent nine years building the city and only held court there for twelve years before abandoning it for Agra, due to a lack of water. There was no evidence of a lack of water today, as the gardens were immaculate, full of brightly coloured flowers and you could have played bowls on the lawns. It was a huge and complex city, beautifully carved on many surfaces and apparently painted and hung with lavish textiles everywhere. One can only imagine the hustle and bustle of the court in its heyday. The Emperor himself was Muslim, but designed the buildings in a mix of Mogul and Hindu architecture and regularly held public audiences with the Hindu population, as he wished to appear a benevolent potentate.
After lunch our destination was Agra, with the plan to visit the Agra Fort another Mogul palace complex built over 90 years from 1565 by the the same Emperor and his successors.
It is all world heritage sites today! This is an equally spectacular building on a similar scale. There are a lot of similarities to the Amber Fort at Jaipur, as it was modelled on the Agra Fort. The details are quite incredible. Again water effects were centre stage; water being hauled from the nearby river by a system of water wheels, men and buffalo 24 hours a day.! The water was held in a huge reservoir high in the roof, before being released by little by little to feed all the rills, pools and fountains. Unfortunately, this is not recoverable, but it is clear what a fantastic effect all this water would have had. The palace ceilings were originally intricately painted and the pattern then given to the carpet makers and an identical carpet made for the floor in each room . This was the ultimate in interior design here in the 1600s. Richly embroidered fabrics covered doorways and were hung about the walls. Can you imagine how opulent it would all have been?
After an exhausting day we have finally arrived at our Agra hotel and I finally have a decent internet connection, hence I can upload the latest postings. If I am out of touch for a few days this will be the reason why!

One interesting coincidence today at the Agra Fort. We were waiting to enter and I glanced left and there was a friend from my Flower Club. I knew she was coming to India around the same time, but how about same time, same place ?! The old adage ‘it is a small world’ fits!!Читать далее