Akbar's Tomb & Shopping

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Boxing Day Blog



Day 26. Tuesday 26^th December







Today started with a pack of monkeys making their was across the rooftops towards our rooftop restaurant. Kids were fascinated, adults worried. Our waiter produced a catapult and just the sight of it seemed to work and they moved along.



We decided to visit Akbars Tomb today, the last major site to visit, but about 10km from the Taj. Then we planned to carry on to a good market for some last minute shopping as we only have a few days left now. But trying to hire a taxi was very hard here as they are not really allowed in this area. But we found an auto-rick who said he had a taxi. But he drove us for miles in his barely held together rick, with rusty holes everywhere and a windscreen missing (they have 3). Eventually we found the taxi and he took us to Akbars tomb.



I wasn’t expecting anything as grand as what we found. Massive entrance gates looking like small Taj’s but in red sandstone intricately inlaid with marble (although built befor the Taj). Through the gate we found ourselves on a raised walkway within a large park area where herds of Ibek roamed (long spiral horns). The Tomb bulding was a tad dissappointing after the gate, a low flat building with a number of domed tops. Shoes removed we entered the dark sloping passage that led a few hundred meters, until we were in the centre, a large cubic room with a tomb in the centre. A guard there let out an almighty shreik which echoed around for a long time, the kids made him do it again and Rocco tried his own shreik of course.



We then wandered around the outer plinth, seeing the other 3 “entrance doorways” but the East & West ones seemed to have less inlay and were minus actual doorways, meer imitations of the real one, and the North one was almost a total ruin. But this is 500 years old so overall has weathered well. As we wandered back to the taxi we were passed by a large school party and had to say “hello” a few hundred times as they passed us. Esmee had a few selfies taken, one hindu old man was particularly taken by her and picked her up, she wasn’t pleased (see photo) but not many selfies as we pretty much had the place to ourselves.



Then we were supposed to get the same taxi to the Sandara Market, on the way we saw many goats in coats – this seems quite common here, sometimes a shirt or jumper slipped over the goats front half (goats are prone to catching a chill, but this looked really funny). We even saw 2 goats laying on motorbike seats! Maybe they owned them?



Our taxi driver took us to an expensive government gift shop and I had to argue with him that we wanted Sandara market! Eventually he did take us but the market was closed on Tuesdays. He could have said so! So we asked him to take us to another market near Agra Fort Train Station, and just leave us there. It was quite a good market but very busy and remenicent of Varanasi’s back streets. Sadly not very good for gift shopping though, but good for a wander around. I didn’t see any other Europeans there, just thousands of locals. We went to an Indian restaurant where I had a Masala Dosa, hot but good. Esmee would not order a plain dosa, but ate the ends of mine, she is far more fussy about food than Rocco. We wandered a bit more then got an auto-rick back to our hotel.



That evening we went shopping in the expensive tourist shops near the East Gate to the Taj, and found what we wanted (cheap crap). Shirl spent ages in one shop so Bill, Rocco & I went to a cafe and drank lots of coffee whilst we waited. I’m sure she had shares in that shop now!



Our last night in our hotel in Agra, we ate our dinner there and had a fairly early night (I was asleep by 10pm!)



Although we have quite enjoyed our stay here at Hotel Kamal, we have had some problems; first we were given rather gloomy ground-floor rooms with windows onto a corridor; then I found a tiny leech in my sink on our 1^st morning and insisted on a room change; then, last night we found a mouse in each of our rooms (Shirley hates them, but mine was quite cute). After rattling their holes about, and clearing all rubbish & edibles away, I was sure they had gone, but Shirl slept badly that night…

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Comments

[Amy Friedman]

great shot!
That picture conveys so much! You can hear the market.

[Sandeep Chauhan]

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