Agra adventures

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After many hours at the Taj MAhal we decided it was time to grab a bit of lunch and head off to Agra Fort. We met this amazing guy selling essential oils that he makes from his own garden. He showed us a photo album of random shots of him with tourists, some magazine cut outs (seemingly unrelated) from movies and some pictures in other countries that he may have been to (when we looked more closely at the picture of the Eiffel Tower we recognised Eric Banna which twigged the movie cut outs!). The oils were actually really nice so we bought some and got his photo too.
Next we headed off to check out the Agra Fort for the afternoon. Although we have looked at a lot of forts each has had their own unique charm. The toiurist guides out the front explained (about a thousand times) that there are 16 palaces inside and that we couldn't hope to find our way, or understand, without a guide. After our most expensive day fro admission fees yet we decided it might be quite nice to just get lost inside 16 palaces and declined the three different guides.
This fort turned out to be quite spectacular (even after the Taj!), parts of it were actually built by the same emporer (he was also imprisoned here for several years when his son over threw him - the apartment that he was imrpisoned in is marble lined with similar inlaid stones to the Taj and several views along the river to it, it also has a small private masjid, so we guess his son was not all bad - though it must have been hard for him to look at the Taj Mahal and think of his wife every day without being able to visit).
Different parts of the fort had been built by the different rulers of those times, there is even record of 5000 apartments being built within the basement to house one rulers harem. It was really lovely to just get lost in the different parts and styles of building and to wonder what used to be what in the ruined sections. The Fort walls and moat were also quite impressive.

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Comments

[johnmary]

Sensational.....
I just love the last 2 updates........well described and beaut photos....I want to be in that big Throne Room...can see me there.