Blogs from Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 6

Geo: 26.9847, 78.1019We left Jaipur at 8am on Sunday morning. We had over 200kms to travel to our next stop, Agra. It was another clear sunny, warm day and the traffic was not so busy. The trip would prove to be far easier and more relaxing than the previous one.Our driver first stopped about two hours into the journey at a local Hindu Temple. We all spent about 20 minutes exploring this place. It was very colourful with many worshippers, mainly women and children, paying homage to the gods. They seemed to be making offerings of puffed rice and small white flowers. They walked around the altar in a clockwise direction several times and then sat down. They were very welcoming and the children gathered around us waving and saying "Bye-bye."From there we travelled onwards on ... read more

Geo: 26.9847, 78.1019... read more

Agra, the home of India's main attraction the Taj Mahal...and one of the hottest places we've been so far. Getting the train there from Khajuraho was a bit annoying, since there's only two trains that run per day, one leaving at 9.10am and arriving around 5.30pm or one that leaves at 6.20pm and pulls into Agra at 2.20am...the latter being fully booked every day. If we went to the train station to get the ticket it might have been possible, but there wasn't a chance on cleartrip, so we ended up getting the morning train. The first day we'd spent (other than on the ship to Andaman) actually travelling from one place to the next....a waste of a day and the train was super hot. After about nine hours of a sitting on a train we ... read more

Agra, Taj Mahal and all in the rain! What is going on? The Thomas weather curse strikes. Profuse apologies from the Indians that it is raining today, though it never rains in India in February.....the rain hammers down as we head to the Taj Mahal in darkness at 6am. We get to the East Gate to find there is a power cut in the ticket office. Fortunately it is restored and armed with tickets we set off on the short walk to the actual East Gate entrance to the Taj Mahal precincts. Annoyingly there is a massive queue for the foreigners who have paid 750 rupees and none for the Indians who have paid 25 rupees. Security negotiated past the men with machine guns and we are in the gardens before the main gateway to the ... read more

We arrived in Agra on the evening of the 15th and checked into another amazing hotel before heading out for our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. We saw it from the back at sunset which was quite impressive but we knew it was only a taste of what was to come. We had a wake-up call at 5 a.m. yesterday morning, so we could be at the front of the line when the gates opened at sunrise. Our guide told us to leave all bags on the bus so we could avoid the bag security and just go through the body scan and pat down. We were among the first people to walk onto the grounds.....It was truly amazing!!! it was incredible to stand in front of it and for the first 10 minutes, to ... read more