We left Agra at maybe nine and got to FS by ten or so. Our driver was very keen for us to hire a tuk-tuk and guide but we didn't want to and had to be quite persuasive. In the end we were glad we did decide to walk. We loved what we saw.
The road to FK from the carpark is lined with the usual cries of 'Rickshaw, Madame!' and added to this is the crowd of children who ask for 'school pen' and 'foreign coin'. There are also guides offering their services every which-way. Some genuine, some not.
Brushing all this aside though, entering the mosque is glorious. The palaces are as well. This place is older than the Taj and it feels it. The red sandstone used for construction of the buildings almost gives the impression of a red-coloured wood. It has been used for alcoves and decoraded beams, floors, walls, balconies. Carving is done in that wonderful geometric mughal style and slabs of sandstone are even laid between roof beams to create upper stories, just like wooden planks.
While marvelling as the beauties around us we bumped into the same New Zealand couple we saw at the Taj yesterday. Had a good chat. Nice to meet someone from home in India.
On the way out of the complex a group of little boys asked if we had 'foreign coin'. I did have a NZ $1 and I handed it over. Well! the excitement! Little hand began grabbing and they had a good-natured tustle over it. We walked away and when we looked back the three little figures were huddled over it with great fascination. They loved that coin. We also had requests for used water bottles and ticket stubs from another group, which I gladly handed over. Got a photo of the little monkeys too.
It's four hours by car from Fatehpur to Jaipur. In Rajasthan, the landscape becomes more beautiful and less influenced by the polluted skirts of Delhi.
Women cut grain in their coloured saris; coloured flames against the brown fields. We also noticed many chimneys seemingly smoking in isolation in the middle of vacant lots, but soon realised that they were brick kilns and that the orange carpet around them was hundreds of finished clay bricks.
Once we were close to Jaipur we also passed through a whole district of stone carvers, and pagodas, animals, gods in pale stone lined the side of the road for many kilometres.
Although the field labourers in their saris created a lovely picture, I wouldn't wish that life on anyone. All the towns and villages we passed through loooked so poor and dirty and dilapidated. This country is divided more clearly than any other I've been to into classes and it is hard to get used to.
On the outskirts of Jaipur the landscape chages and rocky mounds begin to take the place of the flat agricultural land. We saw ruined forts ontop of rocky mound. We have reached the land of Rajputs!
And now we are in Rajasthan! Tomorrow the city of Jaipur waits.
Also, we have our train tickets.
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