Agra

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You can't go to India - Delhi in particular - and not visit the Taj Majal, right?

A large, jolly Australian man and his wife shared our compartment on the train. He had their entire experience mapped out - from the cafe where they could watch the sunrise over the Taj, to the subsequent 4 hours of investigating every corner of the grounds. His positivity and enthusiasm were effusive and made me feel guilty that I viewed the excursion as a chore.

I guess it was good to get to the Taj at 6AM, but it was already 35C/high 90sF, and I had hardly slept the night before in a shoddy room with dripping aircon in Agra, after the Tuk-Tuk ride from the train station with homeless children poking us for money led us through chaos even on a Friday when everything was closed, and a new level of sewage smell that pervades all things, except perhaps the lovely Joney's Place for dinner and breakfast, which is all we really ate since they confiscated our apples and nuts upon entry to the grounds, so we enjoyed the tomb aesthetics and stayed for maybe an hour and ran into the big Aussie guy who looked well rested and absolutely thrilled to be there, so I admitted to Peggy that he would be a much better traveling companion than I am before desperately finding a way to escape that circle of hell before our scheduled train at 3:45PM, in the end going with the India flow and taking the advice of a tuk-tuk driver to take an 11AM bus on a new highway back to Delhi, but of course the air-con hardly worked and it dripped water all over us and so it was 4 or so hours of cramped heavy air and sweaty backs till Delhi and the metros, eventually to the safety and comfort of the airport Marriott.

It was a challenging excursion, mostly for the sake of saying we've done it.

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Photos

Obligatory Photo
It may not look like it, but I was absolutely miserable.

Comments

[Home and Away]

I don't think I would leave the Marriott...
unless it was in an airconditioned conveyance to the next air conditioned space. Near the bottom of my bucket list is to see the Taj Mahal, so your blog pretty much encapsulates what my experience will be.

[Keep Smiling]

Yes, Agra is Hell on Earth....
...but the Taj Mahal is Heaven. I've been there four or five times and seen it from every angle - the usual tourist 'wow' entrance, from the other side of the river, from my hotel rooftop, from the fort, and at every time of day - dawn, daytime and by moonlight. It never ceases to amaze. (Note to Bob: move it up your bucket list - you don't realise what you're missing!).