Agra photo highlights are HERE
The Taj Mahal
India’s premier tourist draw is of course the Taj Mahal. That gleaming white building that is known the world over as the most beautiful of all brings in millions of tourists every year. It hadn’t up til now, brought in us. I, on my first trip to India (of which I hated every single minute of) some seven years ago did visit the Taj, but Michaela had not. On our last trip to India 3 years ago, we had decided against visiting the attraction that singlehandedly brings most people to India. Why on earth would we not want to visit the Taj Mahal? The most beautiful building in the world? One reason. The cost. At 750 rupees the entry fee is horrendously expensive by Indian standards. When most attractions cost anywhere from 50-100 rupees, or 250 in Delhi, the Taj is very pricey. Of course this is only about $17 or £10.50 but when you consider that for the same price we can travel very comfortably on a 15 hour train ride, or stay 3 nights in a hotel it seem expensive. And to top it off, the Taj operates on a dual pricing scheme where Indians pay 20 rupees ($0.45 or £0.28) and foreigners pay the inflated price of 750 Rs. It’s like charging the £17 to see the Tower of London and then charging foreigners £637.50. The Golden Temple in Amritsar is as beautiful, and is FREE! 100% free. They even give you free food, and free accommodation. So, on the principle, we decided against paying to see a “stupid building.”
However, on this trip with Mum in tow, we figured that we’d better check it out this time around. Agra is located about 3 hours from Delhi. Many travellers give horrible reports of Agra. Given that it sees more tourists than any other place in India, the hassle here can be extraordinarily intense. You can’t walk down the street without every shop keeper shouting at you to buy “marble” (more likely soapstone) Taj sculptures, to come into their restaurants, to buy water, toilet paper or cigarettes. If you glance towards a rickshaw they are on you like flies on shit, insisting that everything is “too far for walking.” It can be a little annoying, but if you learn to tune out all of the clatter, Agra isn’t a bad place. The town is scruffy as hell, but has a certain charm. The area immediately surrounding the Taj is littered with restaurants serving sub-standard “Multi-Cuisine” fare, cheap hotels and tourist shops. Despite all of this tourist tat, Agra hasn’t really lost it’s village feel and step a
street away from the main tourist thoroughfare and you are into windy lanes with colourful houses, children playing in the streets, cows (of course) and normal people going about their lives. We got a little lost wandering around the streets and were pleasantly surprised by the normality of it all. We even had a boy lead us out of the maze-like alleys when we got lost, and to our astonishment he didn’t ask for anything in return; a rarity in a tourist town like this.
As we were looking around for a hotel, we decided against the places offering a Taj View as they were pricier than anything else. I did decide to check one out though, as it looked quite nice. The room was OK, if a bit more than we normally pay, but when I walked up to the rooftop, I was immediately sold. There was the Taj Mahal. In full view and more beautiful than I had remembered. And bigger too! Wow. Words can’t really describe the feeling of looking at the “stupid building” so I won’t even try. Needless to say, we were feeling a little less annoyed at the prospect of paying 750 rupees to see it up close.
The next day we made our way to the Taj entrance, paid the 750 rupees and were issued with a “gift bag” only given to foreigners having to pay the special price. Inside the paper bag, not unlike a wine bottle bag was a bottle of water (good idea given that it was about 40 degrees) and a pair of hospital-style single use shoe covers for walking on the elevated platform that supports the Taj itself. I guess the Indian government thinks westerners don’t like walking barefoot; they’re probably not wrong. We tried turning down the paper bags (with a message telling us to Keep Agra Clean and Green,) and the shoe covers but the attendant insisted we take them, telling us happily that they were free from the government. I wonder how much of my 750 rupees paid for this free stuff.
Inside we went. Wow. that’s the first feeling that hit us when we entered the gates. Despite the throngs of people scrambling for photos immediately inside the gates, the magic of the Taj couldn’t be smothered by the noise or commotion. Whiter than white (I’d say gleaming except that the sun didn’t come out once during out stay) ingeniously set in immaculate gardens and of the most perfect architectural design, it really is more than some “stupid building.” We spent 3 hours admiring the building, walking on the smooth marble platform (you definitely don’t need shoe covers – bare feet work just fine) and enjoying seeing the throngs of Indians parading their wonderful coloured clothing in front of the pure white of the Taj. Indians from all over the country, with all of their diversity of dress, come to see this national icon. It’s a wonderful photo opportunity to see two of India’s best characteristics, it’s colour and the Taj Mahal, together in one place. A lot of very simple village folk make the long pilgrimage to Agra and like most villagers they are curious and friendly in equal portion, often staring at us but responding with smiles when we smiled or waved at them.
The inside of the Taj is where Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj, and his wife are entombed. Intricate carvings inlayed with semi-precious stones decorate this inner sanctuary, which unfortunately is not lit. Luckily we had a small torch which wonderfully displayed the beauty of the different stones. In India practically everything is holy, yet rarely is anything sacred. Despite the signs asking for quiet inside the tomb and the signs asking people to refrain from taking flash photography, flashes illuminated the chamber almost constantly and people were shouting all of the time, enjoying the sound of their own voice echo around the room. Even the guard trying to keep people moving through the tomb was constantly blowing a whistle, thinking this was somehow helping to keep the crowds mobile.
Quite impressive, but almost totally ignored are the two mosques that flank the Taj Mahal. Built with red sandstone and decorated with Persian style carvings (I know this from our time in Iran) most people don’t even venture into them what with that big white marble building standing there.
So, was the Taj worth it? It is more beautiful than I had remembered and grudgingly I have to say that it probably is worth the 750 rupees we paid to enter. But to all of my Sikh friends, I’ll say that the Golden Temple is as beautiful, in a different way, and is still FREE!
Agra Fort
Agra wasn’t always just a tourist town. Back when the Mughals ruled North India under a Muslim empire, Agra was the capital of their domain. To protect their capital, they built the colossal Agra Fort. We decided to walk the 4 kilometres there from our hotel, following a path laid out in the Lonely Planet that should have taken us along the river, beside a temple and burning ghats (cremation platforms) and finally to the Fort. Along the way, we asked for directions, and as is always the case in India, if you ask five different people you get five different answers. I didn’t want the direct route, but wanted the river way, and asking for the temple I was told that there was “Only Taj. No temple.” And of the ghats, there were none. Undeterred, we ambled along until we found the river, then the temple, and finally a place with hundreds of men unloading corpse-laden trucks. I guess these were the burning ghats. Actually we didn’t know what was going on at first. There were loads of people in the backs of big trucks, behind which cars blasted their horns as they tried to get by. It wasn’t until we saw the colourfully wrapped bodies being chaotically unloaded by crowds of shouting, pointing men that we realized that these were the ghats. We hung around for a while, watching the fascinating proceedings and as we continued our walk towards the fort we passed two or three more groups singing and carrying bodies to be cremated later that day. As we watched, some of the bearers gave us big smiles and waved at us. You’d think that they were part of a parade and not a funeral.
As we neared the fort, we couldn’t seem to find the entrance. We walked and walked along the great walls and we realized that we should have gone left at the first corner instead of right and we walked around the entire enormous circumference of the building. We were exhausted in the heat, but the extra journey turned out to be quite rewarding as about halfway around we were ambushed by a large group of slum-dwelling children and some adults jostling for us to take their photographs. We happily obliged, passing the camera around to show them the digital display, much to their delight. One small boy even kissed his own image on the screen. Again we were surprised when no one demanded money from us afterwards and they only waved and kept begging for more photos as we pulled ourselves away.
Built of red sandstone, the fort is as formidable as it is impressive. The fort is absolutely huge. It once supported a town within it’s walls and there are mosques, bazaars, pavilions and palaces inside. The architecture is amazing and the location is fantastic. From it’s walls there are grand views of the Yamuna river and in the distance, the Taj Mahal can be seen. It is from here that Sha Jahan, the builder of the Taj, was imprisoned by his son after he was overthrown and he could only view his creation from a distance. His prison wasn’t bad though. Exquisitely carved white marble walls inlaid with mirrored glass and with a huge courtyard to entertain guests, I’d guess he didn’t suffer too much.
We had intended to visit some of the other sites around Agra, like Akbar’s palace city of Fatepur Sikri, but the heat was starting to get to us and we decided to keep moving. During the day the temperatures were regularly hovering around 42C and even at night, the lowest it got was about 36C. It was killing us, so we kept moving, dreaming of reaching the mountains again.
Up next, the heat continues in India’s Holy Cities.
Hasta luego,
Len y Michaela
Agra photo highlights are HERE
Recent Comments