Incredible India – Part 3 – From Jaipur to Agra
On the road again! We left Jaipur in the morning and rode to Agra, which is the home of the Taj Mahal. In the itinerary it said we’d be visiting two sightseeing spots on the way. Frankly, I had not looked them up in advance, wanting to be surprised and a surprise I got. But before that a biology topic. Maybe it’s not “appropriate” but hey, it’s part of being human. Toilets. My… Why do we neglect this important part of our lives in so many countries and places? If you ever travel around in India, I highly recommend that you do whatever you can to time your bowel movements so that you do that in the hotel, because on the move, you will have to deal with quite unsavory places.
I had too much tea in the morning and soon needed a bathroom but had to hold on until the first sightseeing site. And what a site that was. We left the highway and dove into the hinterland. Just where the heck is K taking me??? Through backwater villages that brimmed with dust and dirt, we drove through fields and then ended at an inconspicuous fence, next to which a dirt road started and the people stared at the weird foreigner, who had to go to a bathroom.
I left K at the entrance to the whatever-it-was place and walked around it to two toilet stalls guarded by children. There is usually no toilet paper and in the better places the cleaning person gives you a few sheets for ten rupees. Here children did the job, but they didn’t even have toilet paper. Their job was to collect the ten rupees and to throw some water down the toilet when you were done. The stall was not lockable but the need was too dire and I only prayed that the kids or someone else would NOT open the door while… Luckily they didn’t. That done K led me into the site. Whoa… What the heck is that? They call it a step well and it’s a thousand years old.
According to K the most plausible theory was that it is indeed a well, why you need to build such stairs to the water remains a mystery though, isn’t a hole in the ground and a bucket on a rope enough for a well? K mentioned another theory – some locals say a demon built this thing in one night 
