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Published: March 23rd 2009
We are now in the blistering heat of Agra. We'll get to our perfect moment in a minute, but first let's start where we finished, still in Delhi.
Last day in Delhi was another day full day of sight seeing, although we're struggling to remember each of the sights so bear with us. Ah, there it is. We started off the day with a trip to the Red Fort, which surprisingly was a little disappointing. From there, we went to the Jama Masjid, which is a massive muslim mosque. Since we weren't wearing long pants I had to wear a full body robe, and Rob had to wear a lovely skirt (looked nice). The mosque holds up tp 25,000 worshippers. In the far corner there is a tower that offers amazing views of Old Delhi. I had to be escorted by Rob up the tower since women and children were not allowed up without a man. Over 150 exhausting, winding steps later we had a beautiful view of the mosque and city, and a slight touch of vertigo.
After we removed our dresses/robes we headed to the Akshardam Temple. Up until this point it was the most amazing sight we had seen. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed in, but we did buy a nice colored pamplet for Rs 5.
We saw a few other sights, but the only one worth mentioning was called Nizamudin's Tomb. Nizamudin was a muslim saint buried here in the 14th century. A many muslim people flock here to pray and to ask for good fortune. The trek to the shrine was a sobering experience in itself. Even though in India there is always poverty and beggars surrounding you, walking through the narrow passage ways brought it right in front of you and forced you to acknowledge it. Since it was a predominantly muslim area, I was frowned upon and gawked at as a woman. When we finally arrived at the shrine they told us we had to cover our heads and only Rob, being a man, was allowed where the tomb was. Unfortunately, he wasn't wearing full length pants and had to stay with the women. Being a woman this was a very uncomfortable situation feeling so unwelcomed, and seeing the muslim women peering in through the walls just to catch a glimpse of the shrine. I was not fortunate enough to see anything. We then made our way back to the hotel to crash for the evening.
The next day we made our way to the train station to head to Agra. The Delhi train station, one of the busiest in the world, nearly killed us. Yet, once we reached our train we realized it wasn't as scary as we had imagined (thanks Shu). Walking through the station we were approached by many "helpful" people trying to point us in the "right" direction, which not surprisingly, was outside the train station. Luckily we followed our gut instinct and refused their guidance.
We then saw a beacon of hope in the shape of a white man. He told us our e-ticket was enough to get onto the train and pointed us in the actual right direction.
We arrived in Agra in the early afternoon, where we took our first autorickshaw to our hotel. Our first impression of the hotel was very postive: a great view of the Taj Mahal from the rooftop, clean room, and very pleasant staff. Shortly thereafter, we met the rest of the hotel staff including many, many ants and several geckos that inhabited our room. I thought the geckos were quite cute, but Rob did not share in my enjoyment. I was the first to see the first gecko, which was on a wall behind Rob. I told Rob quickly to look behind him, but before doing so he quickly dashed away from the wall in order to save himself from whatever was behind him. Since that moment he wasn't able to relax in our room again. Also, on the last night in Agra, just before bed we were greeted by another gecko. I had to shoo it away so Rob could sleep. What a sissy!
At first, Rob enjoyed Agra more than the metropolis Delhi, while I, on the other hand, thought it was a dive. Once we started walking through the streets he changed his opinion. The novelty of seeing stray cows randomly throughout Delhi quickly faded. Agra's streets are filled with cows, which means lots of cow pies, which means tons of flies! And the smell! Due to the popularity of the Taj Mahal, the residents of Agra see every white person as a dollar sign. This is overwhelmingly apparent when walking through the streets.
We had planned on getting up at 5am the next morning to attempt to be the first ones at the Taj Mahal. We were awakened by the slightly haunting sounds of mulim chants in a nearby mosque. As we made our way to the Taj (only a two minute walk from the hotel) we nearly vomitted from the smell of raw sewage and cow pies. It was well worth the early morning. We were the first ones through the gate and quickly rushed to get the best pictures without any people around. The Taj was magnificent and words cannot even describe the sheer beauty of this ultimate symbol of love.
We were the first to enter the main mausoleum containing the tombs. This was our perfect moment in Agra, the not so perfect place. Here we were, standing amidst this hundreds of years old wonder of the world, in complete silence, except for the cooing of hundreds of pigeons. It was the most perfect way to experience the true magic of the Taj Mahal. Shortly after, we visited the room again, only this time the small space was filled with hundreds of loud tourists. We then realized just how privileged we were to experience it the way we did.
Today, in order to kill time before our train to Varanasi, we hired a driver to take us to the sights of Agra. Everything paled in comparison to the Taj and are not worth mentioning.
Now we have another six hours to kill before we leave for our overnight train to Varanasi.
And in case you've all been wondering (and I'm sure you have) neither of us have been faced with a squat toilet, but we probably just jinxed it.
We hope you all are enjoying our blogs and we look forward to hearing from everyone!
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kathleen
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What an amazing time it sounds like you two are having! I'm frankly a little overwhelmed just reading about it - wow Sarah, so how does all that feel? FASCINATING! - and it makes me desperately want to leave my stuffy Uni office and get on a plane ASAP! I can't wait to see pictures of this. Rob, the geckos and I would not have been friends either....eww. Love you two bits, xxK