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Published: February 18th 2007
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Misty Taj Mahal
Ever wondered what the Taj Mahal looks like at sunrise? Good Morning from the Taj Mahal. It was 5 am when I woke up and still deathly dark in the Taj Ganj area. First of all I should tell you that the area nearby the Taj is ummm interesting. I knew this place was going to be touristy but I wasn't quite prepared for the attention I was about to receive. I love attention but not quite like this. For example the first person to greet me arriving at the train station from Delhi was the typical rickshaw driver (you might sense a theme running throughout the blogs by now - it involves noisy 3 wheelers and a major source of annoyance). Normally a quiet word to bug off does the trick but Agra is different. For those that don't realise it there is a pre-paid rickshaw booth that bypasses most of the hassle. Just make sure that a pre-paid trip to your destination is all that you get. A quick stop off at a great gift shop doing some amazing promotional 1 day discount is most certainly out of the question and you might want to hold off organising your rickshaw sightseeing trip. Most tourists coming to Agra arrange a
Yamuna River
This river is a stones through north of the Taj. Complete with dried up river bed and fires burning at sunset. flyby visit from Delhi and with good reason. They arrive, get shuttled by coach to the Taj and other major attractions, then it's back on the train quick as a jiffy to Delhi possibly without a sniff of hassle. But doing that gives you absolutely no opportunity to engage with possibly the most passionate Indians... of India.
I managed to attract a group of at least 10 outside the station alone. I even felt compelled to ask why I had drawn such a crowd. Did I have "tout me" written on my back? Perhaps I don't appear to be the typical tourist. Either that or I am the only one stupid enough to hang about long enough to get a feel for the transport situation. I am informed most of them are simply interested in hearing and learning some English by listening to what I have to say and I can actually quite believe it. On the whole Indians are really very friendly and thankfully mostly harmless. My main questions are "where do the buses go from?" and "where is the train reservation office?". After some investigation I realised they were right, there are no buses to or from
Please Put Your Shoes Off
You can wear the doody socks provided as part of your entry fee or you can just walk around the Taj on the freezing cold marble bear foot - its up to you. this train station. Although what they failed to let me know is that the buses depart about a kilometer from here but never mind - I'm not in the mood for walking anyway. So instead I took a cycle-rickshaw the 5 or 6 kms to the Taj for a very reasonable 30 rupees and a very pleasant journey it was too. Apart from being a cheaper, less stressful ride, I'm actually doing my bit for the environment and at the same time keeping the poorer Indians in pocket. Good old me.
And so arriving in Taj Ganj I effortlessly performed my second bit of mastery bargaining for the day when I was offered "how much do want to pay for the room?". Although I get the feeling that the only reason your asked this question is because the majority of tourists wildly over-estimate the cost of accommodation here, the old guy running the Hotel Siddhartha seemed like a pretty nice guy and fairly genuine - protesting "its up to you!". So I landed myself a pretty good deal and only felt the mildest bit of guilt which I easily made up for by staying more than just a few
Agra Fort
Most trips to Agra are completed without a trip to Agra Fort but it's worth a quick visit if your in the area. days, ordering plenty of food and drink, recommending it to my friend Ingbert who came to meet me and giving a healthy tip at the end; not to mention making note of the name of the Hotel here. Note - this is the way business in India is (or should be) done.
Out and about in the Taj Ganj can be quite entertaining. The touts are easily dealt with by stating your desires (or lack of) loudly and clearly together with a smile. They must know they are a relentless source of annoyance for tourists and being decisive gains their respect. Doing so has two benefits, one; remaining touts stationed a few meters away can also hear you and this saves being hassled by exactly the same questions and offering exactly the same answers, over and over and over again and two; they may remember your face and are therefore less likely to bother you in future.
You don't have to walk far off the main Taj circuit to find some pretty typical lifestyles. I stumbled across numerous kids who behaved like they had never even seen a tourist before. I was also offered to sit down and
watch a serious game of cards being played by a group of men for 10 rupees a round (similar to rummy - winner takes all). On the way back I met a boy who's job it was to mill flour and was happy to tell me all about it. I was then offered tea and biscuits with his friends across the road who owned a miniature music store and together ended up pumping out tunes for half an hour. They found my Indian dancing particularly amusing and made fun of me as I dunked (through encouragement) 4 biscuits at once.
There are some major benefits getting up so early to visit the Taj Mahal namely the lack of crowds. Be warned however that nobody serves breakfast at 5am and there is no eating allowed inside the grounds of the Taj Mahal. In addition staff may test your patience with some over zealous security measures and at the ticket booth by asserting that they don't have change for a 1000 rupee note (given the outrageous entrance fees the least they could do is provide change since you won't get it anywhere else). By lunchtime I was absolutely famished and quickly
Furry Friend
These furry little fellas are absolutely everywhere in India. They are like an urban squirrel and are usually very timid. growing tired having run out of water. The pessimist's theory goes that they want people in and out as fast as possible thereby denying them food and water. Well if your prepared then you can at least take in plenty of water but that would make you much too smart. It was also pretty awesome seeing the sun rise at the Taj Mahal with few bystanders. My only regret was that I couldn't stay to see the sun set again because the morning was pretty misty and a little bit of a let down.
No trip to Agra is complete without a day trip to the nearby town of Fatephur Sikri - a quiet and pleasant ghost town built and soon after abandoned by Akbar - an ancient ruler. Nearby is a large walled area with an impressive mosque featuring marble lattice work. Unfortunately touts are again out in force spoiling the enjoyment of the place by insisting their "free" guided tours upon you. In exchange you might visit their blanket on the floor shop and buy some fake marble. Actually their elephant inside an elephant makes for some pretty impressive handicraft but beware it's usually made of soapstone
Fatephur Sikri
Part of the deserted town of Fatephur Sikri 40 kms from Agra and you will probably end up paying too much for it.
Rounding off the Agra experience was getting up at 6am to catch the Varanasi Express to Jaipur only to be faced with progressively longer and longer delays tailing off at around 5 hours. But by now such delays are not something to get upset about (apparently this train is notorious for being even later) and provides an ideal time to chill out and do a spot of Sudoku over Chi and Parlay-G (tea and biscuits).
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Sy
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LOL
hey Buddy .. sent you a mail .!! How do you find out about all these places ? And you get jiggy with it with the Girl in Red lol . Sy