Nov 5 - Agra to Delhi, India

Nov 5 - Agra to Delhi, India

We awoke at 4:45 am to board our bus at 5:40 am to drive to the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built in the 1600's by Emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite Queen Mumtaz Mahal. She was wife number 2 of 3, however according to all accounts his true love. It is one of the seven man made wonders of the world.

We had a short drive to a lot where we boarded battery powered buses that drove us to the entrance to the Taj. I'm not sure if that was an attempt to control polution or what? We had to wait in line for the gate to open. There are four lines: high-value tickets men, women and Indian men and women. Our guide did well in getting us there early, we were the first bus to arrive and we were very close to the front of each of our resepective male and female lines. The gates were to open at 6am, but didn't open to 6:30am. They are supposed to open with the sun rise. After clearing security we entered though the gate and had our first look at the Taj Mahal. The sun had just risen, and in the distances there was the Taj.

The area around Agra is primarily agriculture and after the harvest they burn their fields, combined that with the large amount of vehicles, and the dung pies still used for fuel in out lying homes, there is a lot of pollution. We could just make out the Taj in the distance which was about three football fields from us.

The "gate" we entered is part of a three sided walled fort like perimeter that encloses the Taj. The remaining side is the rear and open to the river. The entrance gate and the walls are red sand stone and beautifully carved.

Our guide took this time to give us the history of the Taj and then let us towards it, where we took a group photo, which was included in our tour. The photographer also took individual photos which we could purchase and we did. He was a "authorized" photographer. His assistant took our camera and started to take photos of us and he posed us in different locations on our way towards the Taj and the reflecting pool that you can get both the Taj and it's reflection in one picture, if done right. He probably took about 20 different shots mostly with us in them and a few without. We asked him to stop a few times however he kept leading us to a better or different photo opportunity until finally we got our camera back after a $20 tip... Or was it ransom for our camera?

Even in the poor air quality the Taj is amazing. It's white marble and inlay work is supperior to most craftsmanship today. The architecture has such balance that from all views it appears semetic. We approached the platform which is as high as a palm tree. We had been provided with shoe covers, so we didn't need to remove our shoes, so we could go on the platform and enter the Taj. The entire complex consists of the Taj, a Mosque, and a building identical to the Mosque which was intended to be a guest house for visiting royalty is all built upon a platform. There are gardens and a large reflection pool that reflects the image of the Taj. Up close you can really see the artistic work that it has. As we entered the first thing you see is the "tomb" of the Queen, which is not the real one which is located deep within the Taj. We walked though the various rooms, which are bare of any item and then exited. The Taj Mahal has four minarets, one at each corner that are angled out so if there was an earthquake the minarets would not fall on the Taj. We walked around the platform and saw how close the river is to the Taj at the rear. When the Taj was built the river was much wider and of greater volume.

The river and water table are causing some erosion of the supports and will require work to get the Taj from falling down. There are two other structures on either side of the Taj and we walked back to the enterance though the gardens which were watered from the river by under ground ducts. While the gardens have chanced much since they were first designed you get a good idea of what they would have looked like. Overall we spent about one hour and fifteen minutes inside.

Outside the enterance we rode back to the bus on a cycle rickshaw, which was good because the walk would have been uphill. I tried to have our driver take our picture, but I don't think he had seen a camera and we never got the shot. All during our time at the Taj we were besieged by vendors selling books, magnets, postcards and glass snow globes with the Taj Mahal inside. Hindsight saids we should have taken the time to buy some of the souvenirs, because we never had time for shopping.

We returned to the hotel where breakfast was waiting for us, after we finished eating we got our bags and boarded our bus to visit the Red Fort, which contained the palaces of the royalty, the harem, and other high position residents. Originally it had a moat and was basically a walled city. This is where the royals held court and conducted business.

It is constructed of red lime stone, henace the name. The detail in the stone is still in very good condition for the most part and although it does not rival the Taj the craftsmanship is note worthy. After fighting our way though the vendors we entered the fort. Over the years part of it has become a military installation, first by the British and currently by the Indian army. About half the fort is military and the rest contains the various palaces. We stayed over an hour and then boarded the bus to drive to the "shopping" stop. It was a government run co-operative which has cashmere rugs, we had to sit though another demonstration of rug making like the one we saw in Turkey. After that we looked though the rest of the "store", but we just couldn't see paying a price for things that we could determine the value or even liked. For most of us the stop was a waste of time and would have been better spent either driving back to Delhi or a least stopping for souvernirs.

We left Agra at noon for our 5 1/2 hour ride back to Delhi. We finally reached our hotel at 7:30 pm. The ride back to Delhi seemed to have less traffic, but the scerenry was the same. By the time we reached Delhi it was dark and we all would have liked to go to the hotel, but our tour included a drive around Delhi to see some of the sights supposedly on the way to the hotel. In any event we finally reached the Le Meridien Hotel a definite five-star hotel. I know it was five-star because it had a 45 inch flat-panel tv on the wall in the room. We had time to get our room and freshen up before our buffet dinner. Our wake call for the morning was 3:30am so we didn't have much time to enjoy the amenities of our room or the hotel. Just a note, that the parts of Delhi that we saw, even in the dark, looked more like a first world country then what we had seen elsewhere. The British built buildings are still beautiful and most still in reasonable repair. The British built beautiful boulevards with gardens and traffic circles.

Sent from my iPad

Hal