I'm now in the small village of Orchha, which is yet another area strewn with assorted old temples, palaces and forts, etc. I just arrived a few hours ago, right after dark, and so haven't had the chance to see anything other than the inside of my hotel room and then wandering around the village a little bit. But, so far it looks very nice (other than the mosquitoes, obviously things are warming up here in India as the bugs are coming out of the woodwork), and really quiet and mellow.
It's been a pretty full few days since leaving Bundi. The day before leaving Bundi, I bicycled down to the railway station to try and book several tickets, including one for the next day. However, I got there at 3:30pm to find that they had closed at 3pm, since it's a small town. So I figured the next morning I would just take the bus to the larger city of Kota, about an hour away, and try to get on a train that left from there heading north at about 11:30 in the morning. Next morning, I packed up and made it to the Kota train station by about 9:30, with plenty of time to deal with the tickets. The whole line situation wasn't nearly as bad as at the New Delhi railway station, only problem was that 2 out of 3 of the trains I wanted to make reservations for were full, including the one for that day. But, I did at least get a ticket for a couple of days later (for the train that just took me down here today); then they said to go to another ticket counter and get a ticket for "general seating" for that same train that day, which just means third class.
I think I took third class only once before, and it was six hours of sitting crouched on the floor near the bathroom, with people piled all around. So, not your usual relaxing train ride. There's apparenlty no limit to how many tickets they will sell. This ride would be only 3 1/2 hours or so since it was an express train, and it was really important I get on it because otherwise it was a 7-8 hour bus ride, which would get me where I was headed way late in the evening, by the time I got back to the bus station, waited for the next bus, etc. So, I got a general seating ticket, and when the train showed up it was bad news. There was only one or two cars for general seating for some reason, and a huge crowd of people waiting to get on. I tried to join those trying to cram on, but it just wasn't going to happen.
With no other options basically, I decided to go forward and see if I could get on another car and plead ignorance if they caught me. I did this, and ended up in a 2nd class a/c car, which means the second of three different classes of first class, so it's actually well above normal second class. It was quite plush, nice and cool with the a/c going and extremely quiet. So I sat down on one seat where there was another guy sleeping under a sheet on the opposite bunk. After a couple of minutes another Indian guy showed up, and didn't seem too bothered by my being there. I figured if I could just hang in there until the train started moving, then I was at least on the train. It started moving, and a couple of minutes later the ticket checker showed up, which was pretty quick on his part because usually they don't come by until midway in the trip at some point. So either I was just unlucky in that regard or they're just better about checking tickets in first class, probably a bit of both.
But for some reason when I showed him my third-class ticket he hardly flinched (I didn't even have to plead ignorance), but instead just told me to go forward to one of the second class cars, rather than third class; I'm assuming because he knew there was no way I would fit into the rear third class one, and as a foreigner he may have just assumed I didn't know how it worked anyway and so gave me a break. So I did this, and soon enough came across a group of exuberant young Indian guys who demanded I join them at their seats, which was perfect because this provided some cover in case the ticket checker came along again. They were all under 20 and attended the same architectural university in Punjab state, which is primarily Sikh (a minority religion in India). Many of them spoke English and so we were able to have more of a conversation than just the usual 10 questions. So everything worked out from there, the time passed pretty quick, my ticket didn't get checked again and I showed up in Bharatpur, a short distance from my destination of Fatehpur Sikri. Fortunately, though, I shouldn't be in that position again here of having to get on a train that I don't have a ticket for, because getting stuck on a bus at that point would have been a long and miserable ride.
Fatehpur Sikri is a short distance from Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, which I saw my first time in India. They were both capitals of that region of India at various times, but Fatehpur Sikri was abandoned only 15 years after it was built due to a water shortage. But it was built by a very extravagant Muslim emperor as his royal palace, fort and grounds, and has remained almost entirely intact since then, so it was pretty amazing. You had to pay to enter the best preserved area of the ruins, but then surrounding it was lots more to explore for free, as well as a huge Muslim mosque that was free to enter and is still in use, as there's now a village that surrounds the ruins. I stayed there two nights, then this morning caught a bus into Agra, and caught my train to Jhansi without any incidents. From the city of Jhansi it was just a 20-minute rickshaw ride here (too late to catch the bus).
Only problem is, it turns out there's a Hollywood movie being shot here, starting tomorrow, and so the hotels are mostly full and jacking up their prices. So I got stuck with a bad deal on a place tonight (but at least I got a hot shower and it has a TV, if I'm not too tired to watch it), but then reserved another cheaper hotel already for tomorrow night. It sounds like there's tons to explore here and I like the feel of the place, so I will likely stay here the next three nights. Then, I have another train reserved on March 7th (which I managed to get in Agra this morning) from Allahabad (which is where I saw the Magh Mela Hindu ceremony by the Ganges River, in 2000, the smaller version of the Kumbha Mela) to Gorakhpur, which is the closest city to the border crossing for Nepal, and Pokhara (I probably won't be going to the capital of Kathmandu). I was unable to reserve a train ticket for after Nepal to get me back to Delhi, as it was all full despite being 3 weeks out, so I'll have to work on that one. But I think I'll probably spend my last two weeks in Nepal and then one way or another get myself back to Delhi, for my flight to Thailand on March 27th.
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