Agra
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
43
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Agra,
India
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Agra at 3:45AM is not quite asleep. There are still rickshaw wallahs who will try to sell you a tour for the day. There are still a few mobile tea stands pumping out hot tea. There is still a gas pump open, which was good because we had narrowly rolled into it only after the driver had put his lips around the gas tank opening and forced the fumes into the line. I'm beginning to realize that arriving early in the morning in infamously bustling cities just may be the best time to arrive. We dealt with two drivers instead of twenty. The roads were quiet. It was cool and the dust had settled through the night. People slept on the meter wide median that divides six empty traffic lanes. The number of quadrupeds is greater than bipeds
Red Fort
. Donkeys stand harnessed to carts. Cows roam freely eating garbage from the streets. Bulls with horns painted bright reds and blues lie down in the middle of an intersection. I suppose that all of the above happens during the day as well, but then there are masses of people, honking horns, ringing bells and shouting. Stirred by the daytime heat, dust swirls and smells foul the air.We checked into a hotel so that we could set our bags down and shower. The two days and nights on the train were great. I think that traveling overland adds more depths to the travels. By sunrise we were sitting on a bench in the gardens surrounding the Taj Mahal watching its dome fade from light blue, to pink, then gold and finally white. I noticed a woman who was brought to tears by the sight of it. It is a wonder of the modern world, a place that seems unreal, then ungraspable and untouchable. Again, I'll spare the lugubrious verse and just say that it is spectacular. If you are in India and your train happens by it, you've got to stop.
The Red Fort at Agra is also monumental. Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj, made some white marble additions upgrading it to a palace fort. We spent as many hours there wandering around its courts and gardens as we did at the grand mausoleum down the river. Three hundred and fifty years ago only royalty, nobles and dignitaries graced the insides. For six dollars each we were free to roam through its prestigious rooms goggling at the relief designs and lightly touching the marble window shutters. Time keeps fading away.
That evening we ate dinner on a rooftop terrace looking at the Taj. What a cliché sentence. That evening, after a brief encounter with a large toothed simian, we ate dinner on a rooftop terrace looking at the Taj. With the thousands of tourists and hundreds of roof tops it is hard to escape. And the view is quite excellent. That night after a brief encounter with a single-toothed madman, the Taj Express carried us to New Delhi.
