Agra day 3 - The Taj

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Day 3 of Agra and time to see the Taj. We visited a textile factory our guide brought us to the day before and they told us some cool stuff about the taj. they also claimed to be the 7th generation pf the people who built the Taj and were goverment approved(less the official stickers,poster etc). They nearly had dumb dumb here forking out 150 bocker for a chess set which i found for a tenner in one of stalls the next day. They also showed us how light shines through the marble and through one of the orange stones, so at sunrise and sunset you get the red glowing effect. So we decided we would be good little tourists and get up at 5am to see the sunrise.

At 12pm that day we arrived at the Taj with the new improved plan of staying for sunset. The cost for us foreigners to get in as opposed to residents was 15 times more but you would pay any price really.

The Taj was build in the 1600's by the Shah Jahan and took 22years and 20,000 workers going day and night to finish. The myth is that he build it for his wife as the ultimate shrine(after she died giving birth to her 14th child!!) but he only really had illusions of grandeur and the inscribings showed he faniced himself as a bit of a God himself. Found out aswell that the king planned to build an exact replica across the river in pure black marble which would have been really cool. That was before he was de-throned by his son and then died during a sex and drug binge at 74 years of age(tut,tut -what would allah have to say!!).

We walked around the whole complex and it was pretty spectactular(roaming cows and all!!). Inside with tombs was less so and a bit bland to be honest(thats opposed to the exterior though). After 2 hours walking around the gardens we were looking at the watch(it becomes the backgorund after a while) and seen we had another 5 hours left for sunset. Another money squeezer here. Theres no food or water on sale in the complex and once you leave you cant get back in. So unless your a die hard and prepared to sizzle all day with no food or water you have to pay 2 entry fees to visit in the afternoon and sunset/sunrise. We aren't.

We changed our train ticket that day to leave a day early as we were a bit bored with the site seeing. Had a look around the town and stumbled upon the real Taj, the golden M. They dont sell beef so had to settle with the Mcchicken meal, and it was lovely(there i said it!!).

That night we had a few drinks with an Israeli guy and watched the town going ape shit as they won the world cup which was good craic....

Onto to Jaipur

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