Extreme Agra-vation
Trip Start
Sep 25, 2008
1
20
29
Trip End
Apr 01, 2009
Agra,
Uttar Pradesh,
India
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
We were staying in the Taj Ganj area, which is a few minutes walk from the Taj Mahal and where most of the guesthouses are. Consequently it's where most of the botherers are too and they are relentless.
On our first day we took a Rickshaw out to the fort which stands a few km out of the centre of the city. On arrival we fought our way through the hawkers trying to sell all sorts of crap that no-one would ever want (except the Taj Mahal snow globes that actually Sarah would want, for novelty value)
You enter the Fort up a long and gently inclining ramp designed for Elephants before entering a huge courtyard populated by loads of Chipmunks and one massive Hawk swooping around trying (unsuccessfully while we were watching) to catch a Chipmunk to have for lunch.
I'm can't claim to have seen very many forts in my time to compare this one to, but this was a very nice one with some good views of the Taj Mahal and some impressive building work.
Next stop on our Rickshaw tour (we were talked into it by the guy who picked us up for 'free' to take us from the station to the hostel) was the Mini Taj. The Mini Taj was built by some princess as a tribute to her parents in the early 1600s. It's on the opposite side of the river to the Big Daddy Taj, but was actually built before - I wonder where that emperor got his idea from??? Anyway, it was very nice, and there were more or less no tourists as they were all on the other side of the river. It's nowhere near as impressive as the Taj Mahal, but that's not to say they didn't do a very good job. I can't really imagine how hard it would be to carve and shape marble by hand, these were very talented workers!!!
Last stop on our magical mystery tour was a little garden on the opposite river bank to the Taj Mahal. The Rickshaw driver told us it was worth going in so we paid up our 100 rupees each (which I'm pretty sure he then went and collected part of back as commision from the ticket office) It was a bit of a waste of time, there's a few rows of trees and the foundations of what apparently was to be a second Taj Mahal, made of black marble. It didn't look very much like it to me, and they didn't get very far either.....
The garden seems even more of a waste of money when you find out you can walk down to the river beach, which is closer to the Taj than the gardens, and is completely free. So in short don't bother going into the garden, unless you really like shrubs and foundations, but do go to the beach, you get a good view of the Taj.
The following day we got a train to Gwalior, a town a couple of hours from Agra and home to another fort. We were booked on a Shatabdi express train which meant a)- we got breakfast and b)- it should run on time, or at least nearly on time. We did indeed get breakfast, although much like the other food on the trains it was pretty grotty. But we did more or less arrive on time, within 1hr at least and comfortably on the correct day, so all was well.
We took another Rickshaw up to the fort and were dropped at the foot of a long steeply sloping road not particularly close to the entrance to the fort. Apparently the reason for this was that the Rickshaw had 3 wheels, and only 2 and 4 wheelers were allowed up this road. I can think of no logical explanation for this so can only assume the driver was having us on.
He also pointed to a small hut and told us we needed to buy a ticket. I'd read entry was 100 Rupees each so got the money ready as we walked over. There were 3 men sitting around a table outside the shed.
'2 persons, 1 Rupee' Said one of the men, which confused me greatly, but after questioning he assured me that we did only need to pay 1 Rupee (not much more than 1p). So I handed over 1 Rupee and he handed back 2 small printed tickets, which must have cost about 1/2 a rupee to have made so I can't see how they're going to get rich after splitting the remaining 1/2 a Rupee 3 ways.
The walk up to the fort took us past some amazing scultures carved into the rockside, one of which is 57 feet high. Unfortunately some visiting conqueror named Babur decided to smash off there faces and goolies, which was particularly cruel as I'm sure they'd have been even more impressive in all their glory! The faces have since been replaced with plaster, the willies have not.
When we reached the entrance we found another ticket office where we had to pay our 100 rupees, which created more questions than it answered about the three men who had taken our 1 rupee further down the hill. I mean, if you're going to rip people off surely try to make a decent amount of money out of it?!?!? I guess we will never know what that was all about.
We pretty much had the fort to ourselves and a few groups of local youths. It's incredible to think of the thousands of tourists who visit Agra each year and that such a tiny percentage come here, it was majestic and sprawling and ancient, they were being built during the Battle of Hastings and are nearly 3 times the age of the Taj Mahal.
The fort is a combination of Hindu and Muslim temples and Mosques, with several large palaces which would have been the height of luxury 900 years ago. They are now home to lots of bats.
Perhaps because of the lack of tourists very little has been done to the fabric of the building, there aren't any exhibits or poster boards of movies to watch, just lots of bits to explore, which made it all the more fun.
Next morning back in Agra we got up nice and early to see the sunrise over the Taj Mahal. Instead, as the the sun was rising we were queuing up outside the ticket office. And then after we'd bought our tickets we were queuing up outside the gates behind lots of tour groups who had arrived after us but joined the gate queue while were still in the ticket queue. Their tour leaders then got them all tickets. This was in the end rather unimportant, when they finally did decide to open the gates around 7am the lines (2 for men and one for women! ;-)) moved fairly quickly.
There is a strange list of things you're not allowed into the Taj Mahal area. Food is a no-no so I lost a packet of crisps and some chewing gum that were in my bag 'register these with local authority!' the man on the gate instructed me. I opted to throw them in the bin. I then had to convince him that Sarah's face-wipes did not come under the 'food' or 'electronic goods' category and they were saved, and he missed the mobile phone I'd stuffed to the bottom of the bag.
More strangely thought the guy infront of me had his head torch confiscated. Quite what damage that was likely to do to a building made out of one of the hardest substances on earth I do not know.
Once inside you join the throngs of people shoving to get their photo of the Taj. We went further up towards the building and managed to get some photos with only a few people spoiling the view, quite an achievement and impossible 15 minutes or so later.
The building is mesmerising, it's difficult to imagine how this could have been designed and then created by humans and yet there it is, massive and white and truly breath-taking. Photos really can't do it justice, nor can looking at it from a distance, you have to stand underneath and look up and realise the detail - that the words of the Koran are inlaid with black stone all around the outside and how perfectly spherical the roof is. It's an amazing work of art and I don't think it will, or even could, ever be repeated.
Over these days and due to the hassle we'd encountered on the tourist trail in Agra we decided to change our itinerary a bit. We would spend less time in the touristy areas of Rajasthan and more time relaxing on the beaches in Goa and Kerala up until Christmas.
This also meant that with a few changes to train booking we could get up to Delhi for the last one-day cricket match between India and England. From the England website I'd discovered the contact for getting tickets, and they went on sale the following day. Randomly, sales were being handled by a Delhi bank manager, and his name was Mr Mishra, causing me to get 'so take these broken wings and learn to fly again' stuck in my head.
I called Mr Mishra, refrained from singing 80s soft rock to him, and managed to secure 2 tickets for the match which I could collect on the day we arrived in Delhi. Little did I know that less than 24 hours later this would be irrelevant, the cricket would be cancelled and we wouldn't be going back to Delhi. I'd never get to meet Mr Mishra.....
