Agra - Flying Visit

I was very excited to be going to the Taj Mahal but it looked as though our karma was starting to run out as the "Express" train leaving from Varanasi was 4 hours late in leaving. It was quite cold on the station and just a bit boring, the only excitement was a wooden toy salesmen and Eleanor had to stop me from buying some of them.

The train being late was a problem as we had planned a day trip to Agra, in at 7am and out by 7pm. In the end we arrived at 2pm so we though that we would only be able to so the Taj and nothing else, Luckily our helicopter rickshaw driver was a whiz and told us "don't worry you have time this is my job madam", Eleanor replied: "That's fine but if we miss our train you are driving us to Jaipur".

Our first stop was the baby Taj. It was built before the Taj and was a really lovely place and building. Not what we expected at all and I suppose that is the beauty of travelling and seeing it for yourself. The precious stone was placed within the white marble and was absolutely flat. Eleanor made a comment that she thought her tiling the bathroom was hard enough!!.

The next stop was the foundations of the black Taj, that was never built. The black Taj was designed to be across the river from the white Taj and was the tomb for the husband and the white Taj for his wife. Lovely to see the Taj from a distance and from a place not many people see, the sunsets are supposed to be fantastic there but we did not have time.

On the way to the Taj we passed the Agra Fort a massive red-sandstone wall. Again we could not go in but we did see the outside of the wall where the husband was kept prisoner and had the view of the Taj across the bend in the river. This was the only part of the wall that we could see that had the top building made out of white marble.



The last stop was the Taj Mahal, it has been said all before but WOW, it really takes your breath away, as Indian Poet Rabibndranth Tagore said "a tear drop on the face of eternity".

You enter through a red sandstone gateway which gives you a a tiny view of the Taj and then you are out into the main area with all the famous shots of the trees and water leading up to the Taj. The most amazing things about the building and the baby Taj to a lesser extent is the symmetry of the place, every tree, pond and jewel design on the building is made to give you a sense of order, and this continues no mater which angle you viewed it.

The Taj was build by Emperor Shah Jahan in memorial to his second wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to his 14th child (not sure that this was Mumtaz's 14th, if so no wonder she died). Her death was said to turn the Emperor's hair grey overnight - now that's love for you. The work start on the Taj the year of her death and took 22 years and 20,000 workers to complete.




Of course the outgoing train was late by 4 hours so we had more than enough time to think about our visit to the Taj!! This left us getting into Jaipur at 3am in the morning, and was our first experience of basic sleeper class, we have really got used to first class as I found the carriage quite dirty!!