Advertisement
Due to my sleep schedule I’m wide awake at 3am. Not ideal, but it did come in handy since I wanted to go see the sunrise at the Taj Mahal this morning. I get myself together and exit my room to find that they’ve locked the front doors to the hotel—which hey…safety first right? There’s a young guy sleeping in a cot next to the door and I decide to leave him be for a few minutes and see if I can catch a glimpse of the Taj and sunrise from the rooftop. Most of the hotels and restaurants in Agra advertise their views of the Taj, I don’t care that much but thought it’d be a different site. So I make my way up there cautiously because they have signs saying to beware of the monkeys on the roof. Surely there can’t really be monkeys on the rooftop?! Oh yes there can be. I walked up to find a large baboon (?) sitting on a ledge, a fairly safe distance from me. I felt confident enough to where I took my camera out and took a picture. Then I turn around and indeed there’s the tip top of the Taj
and some lovely colors. So I line up to take a picture and then I hear it…the pitter patter of a monkey gallop. “Oh shit” I think to myself…how will I explain to my husband that I let a monkey attack me…I turn around—but at that moment think to myself, ‘do I want to
see the monkey attack or just let it bite my bum and be off?’ So I give a half turn and see that it is actually running across the roof top to another roof and on his way. Phew. A quick look around and I spot about 20 monkeys all waking up from their slumber and ready to get their day started—which for all I know starts with breakfast on the rooftop, so I get the hell out of there! I begrudgingly wake up the sleeping “guard” and make my way down the street to one of the Taj entrances. Lines are non-existent and that makes me feel good about my early morning choice. I buy my ticket; fend off a very persistent tour guide—he came down from 975 rupees to 300! Still not interested. And then in the security check they tell me I can’t
take my tripod in?! It’s a gorilla tripod, nothing pointy about it, and it’s about 7 inches long. Apparently they don’t allow tripods…great. This means I have to walk to the lockers to have it held for my trip. It would have been faster to go back to my hotel but I couldn't wake up the “guard” again. Minor set back…Finally back in the Taj grounds I one of a few hundred (better than thousand) and meander the grounds for a while. It is quite nice, must say Ol’ Shah Jahan really outdid himself. With the sun rising, the marble shimmers in ways that makes you want to just sit there and contemplate the love and devotion that went into erecting this tomb of adoration. As time ticks by you can feel the temperature rising and that’s when I know I’ve had enough. Back to the hotel for breakfast and a quick snooze, then to continue the day…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.158s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0987s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb