The next morning marked the beginning of our long drive (5+ hours) from Delhi to Agra. Our driver, Ajai, was awesome. I actually felt safe in the car, for maybe the first time since arriving in Asia. But the drive was long and kind of boring. It turns out that there’s not a whole lot of scenery between Delhi and Agra, so Dad and I spent a good portion of the time working on crossword puzzles and the like. After two and a half hours, we stopped at a place for lunch. We had been assured by our guide, the day before, that Ajai would take good care of us and get us some good lunch. Well, he did take care of us, but I guess there aren’t many lunch options between Delhi and Agra. In other words, we opted for a can of Pringles to tide us over until we got to our hotel in Agra. The journey was relatively uneventful, and as we neared Agra, we stopped to see Akbar’s Tomb, before heading to our hotel. This is where our new guide met us, and he was fantastic. He was interesting, dynamic, actually conversed with me, and was super knowledgeable. He was so good, in fact, that Dad took his card so that he could be sure to hire him for his next trip to Agra (when he plans to take my mom). And Akbar’s Tomb itself was gorgeous. I actually thought it was the best place we had seen so far (little did I know it would be superseded two or so hours later!)
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| Akbar's Tomb - Outside |
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| Akbar's Tomb - Inside |
Akbar was the third Mughal emperor. More generally, Mughal architecture is all about symmetry, so everything always looks pristine and even. Tombs always have four entrances to ensure balance, and sometimes superfluous buildings are constructed simply to maintain this symmetry. The grounds of Akbar’s tomb housed deer and peacocks. I had never seen a peacock in person before, but they are pretty cool and we lucked out and saw several. According to our guide, the peacocks spend most of the day hiding in the trees to keep cool. Dad and I were pretty skeptical that peacocks could fly, but our guide insisted that they could, at the very least, make it up into the trees. I don’t know – we never ACTUALLY saw any of them leave the ground. Although, if anyone would like to offer evidence that these crazy birds actually fly, I might be willing to change my mind. After Akbar’s tomb, our guide took us to an “excellent” lunch spot, which was actually anything but excellent. We hobbled through the meal – a vegetable dish that had apples and other assorted vegetables and was the general consistency of sludge, and a chicken dish where the flavor was fine but the meat itself was a bit suspect – and tried to pick out the bits that were not entirely repulsive. Needless to say, we were ready for dinner just a few hours later.
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| Deer roaming the grounds of Akbar's Tomb |
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| Akbar's Tomb |
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| Akbar's Tomb - ceiling that used to be inlaid with gold |
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Akbar's actual tomb (although he of course is not
actually buried here. No one knows where his
actual body lies.) |
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| Peacock - backside view |
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| Peacock - front view |
After lunch, we headed to the hotel to check in and freshen up, and then our guide insisted that we head out to see the Taj Mahal that evening from a unique view. This view was of the back side of the Taj, and since it was Friday (the only day of the week that the Taj is closed), there would be no crowds to ruin photographs. Of course, on our way there, it began to rain. No actually, to POUR. It was my first glimpse of monsoon on the trip, but we decided not to let it phase us. When we arrived at the viewpoint, we waited the rain out for 20 minutes or so.
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| Boy through the rain-covered car window |
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| Pedicab driver in Agra |
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| Food being made during the storm |
Once it had let up a bit, we ventured out through the mud (in our flip-flops and armed with umbrellas) to view the Taj and wow was it ever glorious. We were just walking through some tall bushes and trees through this pretty little garden/park area and all of the sudden we turned a corner and BAM there it was! Now, it was still raining, so it was a little bit of an ordeal to maneuver umbrellas with SLR cameras (i.e. cameras that require two hands) without soaking our cameras. But as we stood there taking pictures, the rain let up and the clouds began to dissipate. In other words, we maybe spent 40 minutes at the Taj, but the lighting was constantly changing. Every time I turned around, it looked completely different and absolutely gorgeous. It’s one of those things where you think, yea, it’s the Taj. It’s one of the seven wonders of the world. Yes, it’s exciting, but honestly, I’ve seen pictures a million times, so can it really be that great? And the answer is YES. It’s amazing. And completely incredible to see it in person. Without other tourists around. Absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it to everyone.
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| The Taj Mahal (well, its backside) |
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| See how it changes with the light? |
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| The Yamuna River |
The next morning, our first stop was, once again, the Taj. But this time, it was the more conventional view which, even with all of the tourists, was still amazing. In order to get up to the Taj, we had to park our car and get out and take a battery-operated bus. This is because several years ago, the Indian government became concerned that all of the pollution would cause discoloration of the Taj. Since the structure is the gem of the country, it is bent on maintaining its splendor. However, aside from banning motorized vehicles to approach the Taj, the government also shut down all of the industry that had existed in the area (factories, coal mines, etc.) with the same motivation of maintaining the pristine state of the Taj. Because the shutting down of industry put tons of people out of work, the Indian government began to subsidize handicraft work in Agra, in a similar fashion to the way it subsidizes Kashmiri handiwork. While I understand why the government decided to shut down industry, I don’t think it’s at all fair to the people who lost their jobs, and even with a subsidized handicraft industry, if laid off individuals had no artistic skill, I’m not sure what kind of work they would be able to do. Once we reached the entrance to the Taj, Dad and I had to enter separate lines to go through security – I was in the women’s line and dad was in the men’s line. This is something that I found all over India that surprised me. First of all, when going through security, not only do you need to pass your bags through an x-ray and go through a metal detector, but every single person is also subjected to a pat-down. The women get to go into a curtained-off room for the pat-down, while the men undergo the treatment out in the open. And oddly enough, there are normally two lines for men to every one for women, but the women’s line is always short and quick. It is almost diametrically opposed to the bathroom line situation in the states. Haha. And this is not only at the airport. This is at all major hotels, malls, and tourist sites. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that security would be so much tighter in India than in the US, but clearly, given India’s proximity to Pakistan, the threats are much closer and much more real on a daily basis in India than in the US.
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| Entrance to the Taj |
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| The Taj |
The fee to get into the Taj is also pretty steep, as one might expect: 750 rupees for foreigners (approx. $28 USD), but it’s only 20 rupees for Indian citizens (less than 50 cents USD). Pretty crazy! Unfortunately, as we entered the Taj compound, my camera lens fogged up royally. I’d been having some trouble with it, moving quickly from air conditioning to the swampy reality of Northern India in July, but for some reason (most likely
because it was the Taj), my camera decided not to cooperate. I had to remove the lens, and Dad held it in the sun to warm it up for 20 minutes or so. Luckily, that fixed it right up, but I was pretty upset at the thought of not having my good camera for the Taj! Now, a little history: The Taj was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shahjahan. He built it as a promise to his wife, and it is, in fact, her tomb. She had told him that she wanted him to build something by which the whole world could remember their family. As a result, the construction of the Taj has come to symbolize loyalty and love, because Shahjahan fulfilled his commitment to his wife after she died. The Taj was completed in 22 years (quite the commitment!), and so there are 22 steps leading up to the entrance of the tomb itself. Taj Mahal means “Crown Palace,” which is why it was built in the shape of a crown (an octogon). After completing the Taj, Shahjahan began to lay the foundation for a Black Taj on the other side of the Yamuna River from the Taj Mahal (the above pictures of the back of the Taj were actually taken from the site of the proposed Black Taj). It was to be his tomb when he died, and it was kind of supposed to be the antithesis, if you will, of the tomb he built for his wife (identical, but on the other side of the river, and black instead of white), but Shahjahan’s son threw him in jail before he could complete more than the foundation. This is because his son felt that Shahjahan was squandering the people’s money on frivolous architectural endeavors rather than utilizing it to effectively run the country. When Shahjahan died, he was buried alongside his wife in the Taj Mahal, although he specifically did not want to be buried in her tomb. You can tell that the tomb was not designed to house both husband and wife because of the symmetry that was so important to the Mughals. His wife’s casket, if you will, is directly in line with the entrance to her tomb, but Shahjahan’s casket is to her left – distinctly off center. Had the Taj been designed with both of them in mind, the entrance would have centered on the split between the two caskets.
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| We had to put on booties to enter the tomb |
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| It looked like it might storm |
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| Yamuna River |
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| Looks like it should be on a postcard! |
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| I loved it so much I just wanted to eat it! |
The Taj itself is flanked by two mosques within the compound. The mosque on the left is used for Muslim services, to this day. However, the mosque on the right is completely useless. It does not serve any function (it does not face Mecca, so it cannot be used for worship), but it is identical to the mosque on the left side and was built purely to maintain symmetry. Those Mughals sound crazy, but the result never fails to be visually striking.
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| Is it the real one or the decoy one? |
Our next stop was the Red Fort in Agra, which was built by Akbar (whose tomb we had seen the day before). The fort had two motes: one wet and one dry. Back in the day, the wet mote was filled with crocodiles and other undesirable creatures to help fortify the structure. Most of the fort is currently under the occupation of the Indian army, but a small portion was open for tourists. The majority of the fort was built with red sandstone (hence the name “red fort”). Several generations of emperors inhabited the fort, and each emperor chose to decorate his quarters differently. Akbar’s son, Jehangir, constructed his quarters with white marble. As I mentioned before, Shahjahan was imprisoned by his son. It turns out, Shahjahan’s prison was at the Red Fort. His prison was also constructed of marble and decorated with beautiful jewels. In other words, his prison was pretty cushy. He even had a view of the gorgeous Taj that he had constructed! Akbar, himself, also led a pretty sweet life. He had three different wives from three different religions: a Muslim wife, a Christian wife, and a Hindu wife, although rumor has it that he liked the Hindu wife best. Not only was the fort visually impressive, but its functional architecture was also pretty impressive. For example, in the rooms used during the summer, the walls were hollow, and there was a tank above the ceiling. That way, during the hot months, they could pump cool rose water into the walls, which served as a kind of air conditioning. Genius!
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| Red Fort |
Now, I thought that I had already seen some pretty incredible things in Agra, but our guide took it one step further. He took us to a part of the Red Fort called the Sheesh Mahal (“glass palace”), which had been closed to tourists for several years due to vandalism. As we squinted through the clouded windows to try and see inside the closed off area, our guide explained that the walls and ceilings are covered with bits of glass that tourists used to pry off the walls, leading to its being closed to tourists. However, our guide had the hook-up. He knew the guard of the Sheesh Mahal and suggested that if we “greased the wheels” he would let us inside and show us the glass palace in all of its glory. So, of course, we went for it – and was it ever amazing. We had to wait a few minutes until the coast was clear (no, I’m not kidding… This dude could have gotten fired for letting us in, so we had to be as discreet as possible). We all slipped in to reveal walls and ceilings covered in shards of glass. Now, I thought this was pretty cool as is. But then the guard whipped out candles and lit them, and then the room really came alive. The lights bounced and glimmered around the rooms in an indescribable fashion. All we could do was marvel at its beauty and try to take pictures that would never hope to fully encapsulate the experience. The only word I can find to describe it is glorious. And that feels insufficient.
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| Glass without being lit by candles |
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| Our buddy the security guard with candles |
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| So pretty! |
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| Look at the sparkles |
I guess the day kind of went downhill from here. Not that it was bad. Just than nothing could live up to everything that we had experienced that morning. We had a decent lunch at a restaurant called Indiana (I know, kind of funny), and then we went to a handicraft shop where we learned how they inlay stones into marble – the same technique that was used to decorate the Taj. They put a lot of pressure on us to make purchases, and sure enough we did, just not as many as they had hoped for. Our next stop was Itmad-Ud-Dowla (“head of government”), a tomb more colloquially known as the Baby Taj. Ironically, its nickname is deceiving because it was completed six or seven years before the construction of the Taj had even begun. Some people conjecture that it was the inspiration for the Taj, but it’s hard to know for sure. And since it’s only a Baby, it really couldn’t compare to the Taj itself. After the Baby Taj, our guide took us to a few more handicraft shops, but by that time we were tired of being harassed and of salespeople trying to get us to buy products, so we opted to head back to the hotel instead.
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Agra, the city
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| Father and daughter watching Agra evening traffic |
-- Priya/Pri/P/Preesh/Pixi/LPJ/P-Money/Baibiya
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