Golden Triangle (Parts I, II and III)

I'm in the outskirts of Jaipur as I write this one, been a very quicked paced few days, here are a few disjointed and collected memories.

Delhi, 8th March

The train station was heaving this morning, a slow moving, sloth like crowd which had busy legs and stationary bodies.
* * *

Katy and Joe have both arrived, on consecutive days. Both times I travelled the round trip to the international arrivals department, and on both visits I was driven by the same driver. He was a cool young Delhi born man most probably born in the mid-eighties. He loved Delhi, worn looking jeans and his wife to be. The wedding is today. He was clearly very delighted with this fact (as you would hope) and also very clearly, charmingly, in love. He had not seen her for some time (as far as I understood) and told me that when he thought of his wife, and missed her, he would look at his ring and imagine her face. All very well, but I think what confused me was his own confusion between the pronouns "her" and "him".
The confusion lasted the entirity of the drive. I was surprised by his frankness on matters of sexuality, especially due to the illegality of homosexuality in India. There was then a short amount of time when I believed the wife in hand to be the wife in hands father, but this idea went out of the window when he announced "My wife: he is very beautiful!" with a knowing raise of the eyebrows.
* * *

Just finished a bowl of Dal, glass of limeade. Sitting in the Ajay Cafe, in which yesterday I met a fresh faced 24 year old from Falmouth called Jimmy. Jimmy is a sound engineer who's been travelling for four and a half months recording the audio of India, and is just about to fly home. Us, Jimmy and an Argentinian woman named Sofia spent the evening sharing stories, talking music and drinking on the rooftop into the night.

* * *
I've diverted slightly. Joe and I made our way through the heaving station and outrageous lies about closed ticket offices and booked our tickets to Agra, 11.30am tommorow.
We also went to India Gate, a stunning but boring structure, which was surrounded by persistent postcard-whallas and Harry Enfield-like charactertures of English tourists.
* * *
I'm going to finihs my chapati now.

Agra, 10th March

As I write, I sit on the floor of Agra Cant station, and as I look about my person I see pigeons, STD's (Indian Newsagents), French travellers, insects, bussinessmen, mothers, fathers, friends, children begging, children playing, children begging and playing, children coloured in bright purple-pink paint.
It is Holi in India, and today has been a long day. I awoke 12 hours ago and made my way to the East Gate of the Taj Mahal, merely five minutes from our hotel. 40 minutes, 750 rupees and one sunrise later I saw the coined "teardrop on the face of eternity". The Taj lives up to it's fame not only due not only to it's genius architectural design, it's colossus size and amorous white glow, but also because of it's beautiful grounds, it's pervasion of scale, and it's undeniable power of love (and it's original owner's undeniable love of power). It is the greatest building I have ever witnessed, apart from perhaps the (deceased) pier of Weston-Mare. Yet despite all this, it leaves you when you when you leave it's grounds. The surrounding area of Taj Ganj is so distant in style, life and granduer that the Taj Mahal experience is like remembering a film you have watched, like catching a glance at a celebrity.
After this we ate at the most epic building in Agra, which is only a stone's throw away from the Taj itself. Joney's Place, apparently a travelling institution, made us all very happy, full (marmite on toast was involved) and resentful that we'd spent the walking round that building and not at the cafe.
In the afternoon we visited Agra Fort, a vast Moghul construction, which made Penhow Castle look like Welsh Lego. In all seriousness it is an amazing place, but like at Penhow Castle, I was left feeling a bit bored and dry by it. Saying this, I think there has been too much for my eyes to explore today and they are slightly full up. Our only other day in Agra was preceded by a cinematic train ride from Delhi, a seat in the open door, a playlist full of Debussy and Talking Heads and a selection of friendly and interesting locals.
Arriving in Agra AI got my first sensual attack of the rich, noisy, astonishingly devoted and collectively fascinating world of Islamic India. Calls to prayer, classically Arabic architecture, the celebration of Mohammed's birth and the green dress of young Muslim were intricitly woven alongside the Hindi Holi music and young Hindus everywhere.

Jaipur, 11th March

I have nearly scrubbed all the paint off my face and torso, nearly being the optimum word here. The famous pink city of Jaipur celebrated Holi today, and painted the town a brighter shade of pink.
Surfacing tp disjointed drum patterns and dancers in the garden, we stepped out showered from our door to the sight of our hotel manager smothering aggresively bright pink, purple, red and green paint on our faces.
This particular hotel manager, a carbon copy of the many personality traits of Basil Fawlty, is by far my favourite so far. Last nights arrival from Jaipur train station was greeted by a huddle of Lithuanian tourists, Basil himself, his son (nevous and eager behing the desk) and an extremely angry Londoner claiming he'd been over charged. His particular words being "I don't have to stand here and lie to you for an extra 150 rupees, you said 60!".
AT this point I retreated from my attempt to check in, and when I returned 20 minutes later I saw the Lithuanians conducting a long drawn out conversation with the son regarding visa numbers and the manager pacing up and down the front lawn, right hand on head, temperature rising and anarchically throwing frustrated kicks around every couple of seconds or so. All, as usual, turned out well. He just walked past actually, saying something about a pair of dogs called Bin Laden and Saddam. !
So following our depature from Krishna Palace around 11.00am we were invaribly stopped by the minute, plastered up, hugged, assaulted by gangs of children, water-pistoled, "Happy-Holi"ed and eventually driven to a party at the Pearl Palace hotel (not a plush as the name suggests), in which buckets of water descended from the roof onto paint-covered partiers and a buffet accompanied by rum and Kingfisher.
After this rather succesful gatecrash we made our way back to the hotel, and as mentioned previously, WASHED.