Fatehpur Sikri 2

There was a treasury room, one room for gold, one for silver, and one for diamonds. There were narrow hallways between the rooms where guards would have stood watch. The guide said the emperor and his wives were said to have played hide and seek here. He creepily took my hand and tried to demonstrate how they would have skipped and played.

The other part of Fatehpur Sikri was a tomb built for a sufi. Akbar had had no sons, and this sufi blessed him and promised he would have one which is what happened. In thanks, he built this tomb for the sufi. It was in a large courtyard surrounded by walls and large gates made of red sandstone. The tomb itself was made of white marble and laid out similarly to the Taj Mahal. Around this were many other tombs in the red sandstone. There were many elaborate jalis cut into the sides of the building. The guide tried to get me to purchase an offering for the sufi, as it was a “charitable organization.” You supposedly also got your wish if you tied strings onto the jalis. I felt somewhat guilty for not giving an offering, so I threw in Rs 20 into the pot inside the tomb where worshippers were gathered.

At that point the tour was pretty much over, and the guide had mentioned before that his family did stone cutting work, and they had a small shop he wanted to show me. Again, I really didn't want anything, but it's hard to squeeze your way out of these things. There was a guy sitting in a shaded arcade with a bunch of marble pieces. It was the kind of thing where it's a elephant with stone cut out and they have somehow carved one or two more elephants inside it's belly. And marble cut out insense burners and candle holders. I really didn't want, and it was too hot to sit there. I was sweating buckets. He showed me how the marble changed color if you got it went, and said if you rubbed oil on it the colors would stay. I made the mistake of showing interest in a piece that could be a pen holder, incense holder, etc depending on which way you turned it. His first price was Rs. 1500 which was ridiculous! That's over $20, and I knew that it couldn't be more that Rs. 500. I was sick of playing that game, so I was up on my feet, but he stopped me. I could make out that the guide said to him in Hindi, that I live in Ahmedabad, I know the prices. I said I would pay no more than Rs. 300 for it. He lowered his price slightly; I said no, and he kept asking what my bottom price was. Finally I was fed up, and walked away. As we were walking to the car, the guide asked if I wanted this piece and said he could get it for Rs. 300 at a market at the entrance. Yeah, that's what I thought. Rs. 1500 my foot.

However he got the last laugh. Earlier in the tour, he must have realized that I was not going to just take any price without bargaining and that I knew how much things had cost. So he had mentioned that the place charged him Rs. 300 to get in to give the tour. I thought he meant for the entire day he had to pay Rs. 300. So I had been trying to figure out how much to pay him for the tour. I settled on Rs. 300 which I thought was overpaying, and I thought surely he would be satisfied with this. I should have known better by now. He protested and said that no, they charge him Rs. 300 for each time he gives a tour, not for the whole day. He pulled out his license which stated that for 1-2 people they should give Rs. 499. Which was way too much, and I'm sure now this license was a fake. For perspective, when I did my housing surveys, to complete one survey I paid them Rs. 300. It probably took anywhere from 30 min to 1 hour to go to the house, explain what we were doing and administer the survey. The tour was maybe 2 hours and far less skilled that these surveyors. I finally coughed up one more Rs. 100 note. When I got back and checked my Lonely Planet book, it said guides there usually cost Rs. 85. The book is almost 10 years old, but even with that, I paid way more than I should have I'm sure.

And this is why I like Gujarat. People are very honest here, and I don't feel like I'm constantly on my guard. The train to Agra takes 2.5 hours I think. It took us 5 hours to get home in the car there was so much construction. From being out all day, I could feel the grit and dust on my forehead, and my fingernails turned black if I itched a scratch. As I removed my glasses, there was a ring of black where the rims had been under my eyes.