Day 8: The day of the Rupee notes
Today we traveled to Agra with a stopover in New Delhi. I slept almost all the way and when I woke up I saw the carriage door was open and decided to have my picture taken while hanging out of the train travelling at 70km! (See the photo above) Unsurprisingly my father wasn’t really that keen on the concept of taking a photo of his son hanging out of the train as all he could was hold a camera and take a photo if I fell off the train.
Whilst arriving in New Delhi I got a bit cross! I know now why Dad gets so annoyed with traders. We ordered some street food cooked by a father and son. The son was laughing at me and licking his lips. It only cost 60 rupees. I gave him 100 note, but he said he needed the exact change, which I had and I gave it to him. When I was walking away, I realised he hadn’t given me my 100 rupees back. I turned back and saw the son laughing with his hand in his pocket and I just lost it! As I was raising my voice I was aware all the stall holders were staring at me looking worried, but obviously siding with the father and son. The guy got the 100 rupee note out of his pocket and I snatched it. The other traders thought I was taking money that belonged to the son. One of the other traders was trying to calm me down saying, let’s forget about it. I said good idea, I have a train to catch. I can’t waste my time with all this. So I walked off with the note. All this for £1, a bit naughty of the boy, but you can't blame and I should have just let him have it. It would have been a lot more useful for the father and son who were probably struggling living a decent life in India and that is why I am doing fair trade. Plus what they cooked was really tasty!
On our train to Agra, we were sitting next to a lovely, kind family who, you could tell, loved each other very much. We told the husband about Voyage Fair Trade and he was very interested and chatted to us about artisans and famous markets. I had my photo taken with him. Later he was kind enough to find me on found Facebook).
There were a few sad sites leaving Delhi as we were seeing Indian slums and rubbish all along the train tracks.
When we got to Agra, we got into a tuck-tuck and the driver was really annoying Dad. The driver tried to up the price and tried to take us to different locations. He got us to our hotel in the end and Dad, to my amazement, said, ‘We would like to use you again – can we have your number?’
Click here to read about our previous day in India: Day of the orange turbans or read about our next day – the day of the bamboo scaffolding
