Once again, I quote from our itinerary: "Agra - Ranthambhore: by road, 24okm / 5hr". After our experience of the Delhi-Agra highway we decided to ask our driver his opinion of how long it was going to take us. After a moments thinking he said: "9 hours". 9 hours!!! I'll leave you with that thought for now...
Once again, I was excited to be on our way and looking forward to our next destination - Ranthambhore National Park. Apparently it is where "you are most likely to spot a tiger on safari in India" (Lonely Planet) !
On the way we stopped off at Fatehpur Sikri, about 40km west of Agra. This nicely finished off our visits to the Mughal Emperor's monuments forts and palaces. Built by Emperor Akbar, this red sandstone complex is often referred to as a city, as it was for a short time during Akbar's reign the capital of the Empire. It was abandoned after his death as there was no natural water resources in the area and became known as a ghost city. There are two distinct complexes, one made of many halls and buildings and the other a large mosque. Our guide told us of how Akbar had 3 wives, one Islamic, one Christian and one Hindu and so he built their palaces according to their cultural style and so it's really interesting to see the different influences in the building work, by the shape of the arches and the decoration.
One other thing to mention is a footnote about the religion that Akbar created (mentioned in Day 3). In the Diwan-i-Khas - Hall of Private Audience - there is a fantastic pillar that has images of the five faiths of Din-i-Ilahi illustrated - Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Christianity and a religion called Zoroastrian. I don't know how many followers he had but not surprisingly the religion didn't survive after Akbar's death!
Back on the road we left Uttar Pradesh behind and entered into Rajasthan. Once we got onto the highway we thought the going would be plan sailing and couldn't work out why our driver thought it would take so long to get there. However there are two factors (well three really) that contribute to driving in India being so interesting:
1) the speed limits - the reason we could go fast in Uttar Pradesh is that there is no speed limit! Unfortunately in Rajasthan it is 80kmph which works out at just about 50mph. Still, to do 240 miles from Agra to Ranthambhore you would think that around 5hrs would be a fairly accurate estimation, plus an hour for lunch and an hour to look round Fatehpur Sikri, but that isn't taking into consideration factor 2;
2) with all the development going on in India at the moment, the roads are one big construction site. Unfortunately, instead of working on one part of the road at a time, they seem to be doing all the road at the same time - in 2km stretches (or that was what it seemed)! So our progress for most of the journey consisted of us driving as fast as was permitted on the regular stretch of highway and then 10-20kph on the bit that was being worked on. So you can imagine us relaxing, enjoying the scenery, maybe drifting off into a pleasant dream when suddenly the car flies off-road and we are jolted into a back-jarring ride over rubble and sand, avoiding the potholes and trying not to slip down the banks plus trying to look out for factor 3;
3) Trucks. The highways - mostly two lane affairs (one each way) - are the main means of transportation across the country and as a consequence are full of big, noisy, overloaded trucks which drive at less than 40kph. This means that if you want to get anywhere you have to overtake the trucks and so the whole journey is taken up with getting in front of the truck in front of you. The regular mode of driving on the highway is to tailgate the vehicle in front of you. This is because if you leave any kind of distance another vehicle will push in. The method of overtaking is to suddenly swerve out into the centre of the road - remember that a big truck is in front so you can see anything - and if nothing is coming then you race alongside the trucks for as long as possible and then pull in either when there is a space or when a truck coming in the opposite direction threatens to squash you. If, when you swerve out something is coming towards you, then you swerve back into your space and repeat for as long as it takes to overtake. And then you start all over again with the next truck ... and then the next ... which makes for a very long journey. Getting to Ranthambhore in 9 hours was going to actually be a feat of skill on the part of our driver!
We stopped for lunch at one of the little 'tourist' restaurants that just appeared on the side of the highway and relaxed for half an hour before getting back into the car for the next leg of the journey.
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