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Published: October 24th 2017
Today is an early start for the Taj I wake at 5am and put the a/c on in the room to cool it down a bit. The machine is very noisy and as I open the curtains to look onto our "garden" view I see that i have woken up the hotel donkey and he doesn't look to pleased.
We are outside waiting for the guide at 6.30am and he arrives takes us on a moto/rickshaw to the entrance of the Taj which is really a short walk, downhill. I guess that 50 rupees is going straight to him too! We are here early, as we have been advised to do so to to miss the queue, it seems everyone has the same advice so the queues are quite long. I suppose no one advised us that this advise could be bad advise. As usual men and woman queue separately and also foreigners are separated from Indians. Shenton's queue is the shortest so he is through quite quickly but mine is the longest so it takes a good 40 minutes for me to get in. Shenton says while he was waiting a woman lost the plot in the queue about
how long she had been waiting, and started shouting and screaming at her guide and the men in her group who were through and waiting the other side of the entrance, she shouted as she was asked to stop shouting" I am an American citizen" at which point everyone groaned!
Our guide takes us around the Taj but to be honest we really don't need to have a guide as with the little research we have done Shenton knows more facts than our guide does. We are the two most unguidable people in here, Nicola "I'm always right" Smith and Shenton "I have forgotten more than you will ever know" Smith, do not make for good followers. He does manage to take some pictures of us, knowing the good spots and angles to take them from and as everyone says, the Taj Mahal really is majestic in the morning sunlight. There are an incredible amount of people here but for me this is not a problem, Shenton would like it to be absolutely void of all other human life, though with over 20,000 visitors a day that doesn't seem possible. We are told Prince Charles was here 6 months
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Princess Diana's 'bench' is the other side of the water. Situated on a raised area.ago, it seems strange as was it ever reported in the press? He must have visited on a Friday as on this day the Taj Mahal is then closed to all, apart from the Mosque, which only the local people of the Islamic faith are allowed to use, during each Friday. Did Prince Charles sit on that marble bench that Diana sat on, when that iconic picture of her was taken in front of the Taj Mahal. If he did sit upon that very spot, that very piece of cold marble, what were his thoughts? How would he have felt? Anything, nothing? We didn't ask if he had sat there, but we did wonder. Who reading this knows the story of the Taj?? Please read the following if not, it is a story of love and great loss.
The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, who was head-over-heels in love with Mumtaz Mahal, his dear wife. She was a Muslim Persian princess (her name Arjumand Banu Begum before marriage) and he was the son of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir and grandson of Akbar the Great. It was at the age of 14 that he met Mumtaz and fell in love with IMG_20171021_073446
The two of us and the Taj her. Five years later in the year 1612, they got married. Mumtaz Mahal, an inseparable companion of Shah Jahan, died in 1631, while giving birth to their 14th child. It was in the memory of his beloved wife that Shah Jahan built a magnificent monument as a tribute to her, which we today know as the "Taj Mahal". The construction of Taj Mahal started in the year 1631. Masons, stonecutters, inlayers, carvers, painters, calligraphers, dome-builders and other artisans were requisitioned from the whole of the empire and also from Central Asia and Iran, and it took approximately 22 years to build what we see today. An epitome of love. It made use of the services of 22,000 labourers and 1,000 elephants. The monument was built entirely out of white marble, which was brought in from all over India and central Asia. After an expenditure of approximately 32 million rupees, Taj Mahal was finally completed in the year 1653.
It was soon after the completion of Taj Mahal that Shah Jahan was deposed by his own son Aurangzeb and was put under house arrest at nearby Agra Fort. It is said that he could view the Taj form his imprisonment
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Looks like no one is around and the Taj is sliding off to the right. and would sit and gaze upon it everyday until his own death. Shah Jahan, himself also, lies entombed in this mausoleum along with his wife.
We take some amazing pictures and walking around the grounds is a special experience.
As we leave the Taj our guide tries one last ditch effort to get us to buy some tat and sends us into a marble shop where the man supposedly is descended from the relatives of the builder of the Taj and he makes the inlaid marble, which is on sale in the shop, by hand, the traditional way, supposedly. Looks more like he got it from China to me! I am being unfair it is very ornate and pretty but we do not want to buy anything and as we can't be bothered to sit there while he shows us more and more of his hand made marble table tops, miniature ones that we can take home, we just tell him we won't be buying anything and then he looses all interest and marches out of the shop. Better for us so we can move on quicker. Our guide says he wants us to get a Rickshaw back
to the hotel (a few hundred meters away) but we say we want to walk. He says well he is going to leave us here then, as he can't walk that far and what about his tip. Shenton says he should see us at the hotel and we will give him a tip. He is not happy about this and his tip is getting smaller and smaller by the minute, if it was down to me I wouldn't tip him at all, maybe just stop taking your guests to shops where its all about how much they can fleece from the stupid foreigner, that is my best tip for him! Apart from, be a smart fella not a fart smeller.
Overall our impression of Agra is that they are trying to squeeze every penny out of the tourists that visit here, which is understandable, but it leaves a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth. Saying all of that, it surely is well worth coming here to see the wonderful Taj Mahal.
On our way to Jaipur the driver stops at a place called Fatehpur Sikri, it seems that due to Diwali and it being a Saturday
everyone else is going there and the roads are jammed packed with people. There is just one small gateway entrance and busses, cars, bikes, rickshaws and cows are all trying to get through it at once. It takes us an age to reach the fort and I think it will be a quick view of the temple but another guide appears. He is a very pleasant young man who takes us around the ghost fort. This place is over flowing with hawkers and beggars and from the moment we step inside someone wants something from us. I am not really in the mood and as the time progresses I get more and more fed up with the constant hustle. Shenton has given out so many 10 rupee notes that he has none left so as the boys come up and ask him to buy their wares this time he has to find something else to give them so he chooses comedy. When they ask him where he is from he says "the moon" then he asks them for 100 rupees and says he will give them the cheese from the moon and they can sell it, as he is the
man from the moon and the moon is made of cheese, he tells them they will become big business men and they will be able to sell the cheese to everyone even the whole world. They then continue to follow laughing at his story but not wanting to give him the 100 rupees as Shenton continues to be serious and keeps asking them for 100 rupees, they stop asking him for anything in return though and follow him telling others he says he is the man from the moon.
Fatehpur Sikri is a fascinating ghost city built in the 16th century; 37 km from Agra Akbar the great, who at 26 years did not have an heir, founded this historic site. Fatehpur Sikri He went to a saint, Shaikh Salim Chishti who lived in a city called Sikri. His blessing gave Akbar 3 sons. As a gesture, Akbar built a whole new city in Sikri. Akbar named his new capital Fatehpur Sikri or the City of Victory. Fatehpur Sikri is one of the finest examples of Mughal architectural splendour at its height. It was built between 1569 and 1585 and was intended to be the joint capital with Agra, but was soon deserted because the water system could not support any residents. It remained untouched for over 400 years now and its palaces are a remainder of the extravagance of the Mughals Fatehpur Sikri is the best example of the culmination of Hindu and Muslim architecture. Fatehpur Sikri Mosque is said to be a copy of the mosque in Mecca and has designs, derived from the Persian & Hindu architecture. After this within 20 years, the capital of Mughals was shifted to Lahore.
The place itself is wonderful but I can't really enjoy it in any kind of peaceful way and so we leave after about an hour and head back on our way to Jaipur.
We arrive at Jaipur and its clear our driver has no idea where our hotel is. I just have a tiny map printed out on the reservation with the address and my internet is not working so can't help him with any more than that, he stops several times asking for directions and we get a city tour as he tries to find our hotel. We thought this hotel was a nice one but can't remember what we booked and start
to get worried as he can't find the place and we are driving around some dodgy looking areas. Finally we get to our hotel and it is wonderful. It is an old palace and from the moment we enter we are made to feel like royalty. Flower petals are thrown over us and the lady on reception places a gold bindi on our foreheads. We decide to relax here tonight as the grounds are so nice, we enjoy a traditional dancing show and when the 'dancing girls' look for someone to dance with the first person they went to was Shenton and he is the first one up.
We end the evening with a couple of drinks on the veranda overlooking the grounds and neither of us can imagine one family living in this huge palace alone. The last drink Shenton has is a G&T and the waiter says to him "you don't want ice right?" Shenton looks at him and says no I will have ice. He is a bit shocked and asks how many sir? Shenton looks at the glass and thinks well how many will fit in it? Shenton asks for 2 or 3,
the man brings him 4 and pours him the drink, he asks Shenton where are you from? I think he is thinking he is not our usual visitor. As he leaves I ask Shenton why he is having ice as this is one of the no no's for India as you can not be sure that the ice is made from clean water. He said he wasn't thinking about that and just thought it was some fashionable thing not to have ice in your G&T in India. Oh well another roll of the dice for Shenton lets see what tomorrow brings. Even at £10 a drink its still cheaper than a colonic, I suppose??
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AMIT MALHOTRA
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Wah Taj !!!!!
Great pictures. I am glad that you got to see the Taj without any scaffolding attached. I got that on my last visit as some repair works were on. Looks like you are getting hassled by people who want to make a quick buck by selling their artwork. This will remain in Jaipur as well. Need to get used to it. This is not just to foreigners but local tourists as well. I always tell them that " I live here" and then they stop following you. Someday these people need to learn the art of "subtlety". I am glad you stopped over at Fatehpur Sikri. Some beautiful history there. The palace is also associated with Tansen, a classical singer in the court of Akbar. I am sure you saw the small island structure in the middle of a pond where he used to perform and contest with other singers.