Recently we visited the place called Fatehpur-Sikri, a well known place near Agra. The place itself is a World Heritage site, but to my shock I was bitten badly by locals, who are very great in deceiving touring people. And all I can remember now is the escape from local crooks and their mean attitude towards tourists.

We reached to FS town by 11am and at the border of town, our car was stopped by few people standing on road. They asked us to come out and pay some 400/- for City Entry Fee and other parking charges etc. As my driver went out to see the matter, one of the person who stopped our car, came to my window and showed me a ID card saying he is a GOI Approved Guide and if I hire him for the Guide Serive, he would save me from all the trouble, but I have to pay him same amount. What a Joke! 

I got irritated, what the hell! Who are these people? I got off the car and asked them to show the receipt of things they are demanding. No one replied. As soon as I came to know they are crooks, we immediately got into the car and moved towards town.

But to my surprise, we could hardly move 50-60 meters and again 4-5 people stopped our car and asked the same thing. We rejected them with harsh remarks. I was very irritated by all this, because we lost almost 20-30min in bargaining with those idiots for nothing.

We entered in town and again, after 5 min two people wearing some uniform stopped us and started pointing the fingers to some instruction board written in Hindi. They were asking us to park our car inside the parking space forcibly. We read it and refused to do so as we found the instruction board irrelevant to what they are demanding. So they put up barricades on road to obstruct us. As crowd started gathering around our car, we decided to retreat, as we lost an hr in negotiating these idiots unnecessarily. By the time we parked, few more car owners were having same issue with locals. It seems to be common scene at FS parking site, I thought so.

The view at fort site was no different, as so many local guide tried to snatch us, from their competitors. They were bargaining in loud voice and sometimes shouting at each other.Though they were not demanding extraorbitant price, they were really harsh in dealing with tourists. It was really unbearable but unavoidable also. What a poor tourist can do to all this?  Protesting was useless and if someone wishes to protest, whom shall he/she protest? Is any one listening to them? In any case the tourists are helpless in India, who are fooled by local crooks. I have seen this since my childhood and story of deceiving tourists for high extra orbitant charges hasn't changed much.

Coming back to FS, at the end, we were  very exhausted to tell or rather convince them not to worry about guiding us, but they were reluctant. So at last to save our time and energy to view actual fort, we agreed upon a local guide. Rest went smoothly.

As we were moving out of town, back to Agra I saw so many foreign tourists were in problem with local rickhawalas and with other people. It was really bad to see them in trouble. The story at Taj was different, but experience was same. And at the end of the day, I remained exhausted and felt that my own countrymen let me down.

I may ignore this, in short, why I am writing all this? It really doesn't matter to me if this is happening in India. Who am I to care about? What difference will it make if I protest my experience on blog? Hardly any! I knew! But this indifference towards things is creating problem now.

I think, we Indians only believe in exploiting people around in some way or other. This is true at many heritage sites we visit across India. The scene remains same, locals troubling tourists in some or other manner, mostly for money. Locals see the opportunity in tourists, like a shop owner in selling a commodity to customers. But they are not customer to remind you all. They are the GUESTS of our country.  I don’t mind it is happening to me, as I am used to it now. But think twice before doing any nonsense to those foreigners who come all the way traveling thousands of miles to see our beautiful land. And finding them helpless among local crooks, in the land who respected visitors like a God, is really disheartening.