Awesome Agra
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
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103
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Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Agra,
Uttar Pradesh,
India
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
We had a quick freshen up and then set off to the first sight of the day Agra fort. We were greeted by a local guide who had an excellent knowledge of the fort as well as a very good grasp of English, sometimes speaking as though he was a proper English gentleman. He obviously had a great love of architecture as he showed us around the fort, showing us some of the finer details of the buildings, the most impressive areas being the Musamman Burj and Khas Mahal, white marble towers with semi precious inlaid stones which had far reaching views to the Taj Mahal from the balconies
Agra Fort
. These were the areas where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son until his death, not too bad a cell block to be honest, considering the optical effect water features and marble floors.After lunch it was then off to a local carpet factory. We were greeted by the owner who was very much an Indian version of Del Boy (minus the big coat) and started our tour. It was very soon apparent that hand making carpets is an extremely labour intensive process. After a quick lesson in carpet making with the types of wool and silks used and how the knots are tied around the waft and weave we started our tour. There was the guy washing a carpet by chucking a bucket of water on it then scraping it off with a wooden paddle (a process that would take him 3 hours). Then we went upstairs to see the team of men hand painting the designs on graph paper and then having to do the same work over again to make a duplicate copy so that one went to the carpet makers in the local village an the other remaining in the office. The worst job of all though (which made Maud realize that accounting may be boring but there are a lot more bring jobs out there) was a couple of guys who sat on the floor and one combed the carpets with a metal rod like a knitting needle and the other hand trimmed it with a large pair of kitchen scissors. The carpets are made in the surrounding villages mainly by women
1-Agra Fort
. With some of the looms being 24 feet wide and over, there can be over ten women working one loom at a time. With a woman at the back calling out the pattern and them calling it back- which is where the singing comes from if you've ever heard of it. After our tour it was time for the expected sales pitch and we went into a room where an army of helpers arrived and started unfurling carpets in front of us hoping that we would buy something. Apart from feeling bad that they were unrolling loads of carpets that we had no intention of buying there wasn't any pressure. The made one sale to Carol & Jon from NZ and then asked if we'd like to see anything else. Though the tour Del Boy had been telling us about the finest carpets that were made of silk, we hadn't seen any, so Maud asked to see one of them. Although not to our taste, it was amazing to see the intricate detail and when viewed from one end it looked cream and the other a deep red - all to do with the knap of the weave apparently. The 6ft x 4ft carpet laid in front of us it would cost us over US$ 5,000 which when we learned that it took a family of 6 adults 5 years to make wasn't a bad deal...considering the carpets he was selling us for US$ 400 would be at least GBP1,500 in John Lewis. After finishing our free sprite we headed back to the hotel for a quick freshen up then off to the main attraction the Taj Mahal.As it was the last day of Ramadan, Ravi thought it might be quite busy and said that there had been times he had seen queues of over 1/2km from the gate so we were happy when we arrived to see no queue. They have pretty stringent security rules - no bags, tripods, video cameras etc and you are wanded and searched before you can enter. There were quite a few people around but it was not nearly as crowded as the Parthenon, in Athens was. We arrived about an hour before sunset and as you can see from the photos it is an amazing place. Maud managed to get a few seconds to sit on the bench where Diana had the now famous solitary photograph taken - though there were a few too many people around to get the same effect. After sunset we headed back to the hotel and having nearly collided with a number of what Ravi called "street cows" and rickshaws had dinner on the roof with the group, yep you guessed it - curry!!!.
Comments
WOW
Certainly puts a lot of our national monuments into perspective. When you think that this was to commemorate his wife and has lasted so long a simple headstone counts for nought. It looks a fantastic place, very different from you other ports of call. looking forward to the next blog.
Mum xx