March 28, 2016
Taj Mahal: Taj Mahal and Agra Fort
Idaho has its famous potatoes, India has the Taj Mahal.....
The Taj Mahal is a "magnificent magical building" on the banks of the Yamuna River. Two kms away on a different bend in the river is the Agra Fort.
The Taj was built by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his third wife who died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631. The following year construction began and the Taj complex was completed in 1653. Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son and imprisoned in Agra Fort.
We hope the pictures do it justice.
Our hotel is in Taj Ganj very near to the West Gate. We are up early and in line for tickets around 6am, and we are not the first. There is already a queue at the entrance, or to be accurate, two queues, one for men and one for women. We step through a metal detector that beeps with everyone, then for the women their bags go through an xray machine, the men open their bags for a hand search.
The ticket included 500ml bottle of water and shoe covers for walking inside mausoleum, food and tripods not allowed. "They took my whistle and two pieces of candy" Patrick says. The whistle had been given to Patrick by the hotel owner yesterday. Rachel's whistle in her handlebar bag was ignored by those looking at the xray. Whistles are used by those with authority, to blow when someone is doing something not allowed and everyone seems to ignore.
After a couple of hours, we walk back to our hotel and have breakfast in the rooftop hotel. Then we venture out wandering some backstreets to the main road and a vodafone office. Our sim card for the tablet expires soon and we need to go through the cumbersome application process again. Patrick sits at a representatives desk, explains what is needed, she says the server is down and we need to go to another office. In another block, we go into an Idea store, another cell phone provider. So much easier, Patrick gives the representative a copy of his passport, a passport photo and 500rupees and we have another sim card. It's time for lunch and there is a Subway nearby for an Italian BMT on honeyoat bread with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, jalapenos, cheese, mustard and mayo. Ahhh, mustard is go good.
A tuk tuk takes us back to the hotel to wait out the heat of the afternoon before going to Agra Fort. Dinner at Joney's Place was excellent. At 830pm, Patrick returned to the travel agent office for our seat assignments for the train to Varanasi tomorrow evening.
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