Day 35 Agra
Wednesday January 9th, 2008
Up early this morning about 5am. A busy day – the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and back to Delhi. I spent over an hour blogging.
Still do not know if we have tickets for our departing flight. Got a couple emails – our house sounds like it is in a terrible state – the washing machine seems to have failed and even after the first cleanup leaked again. I wonder why they do not just turn off the water to the machine in the meantime?
I try not to worry too much. We have to get internet access soon so we can figure out what is going on and what we are going to do. Hopefully tonight.
We are well over a month on the road. I am looking forward to our upcoming Egypt segment – I just hope we can get internet somehow.
I have not been able to work much during this last week and expect the same next week. I should be able to catch up in Italy where we can slow the pace. I am concerned about what our burn rate is going to be in Italy – everything has been more expensive than anticipated – and we have to pay for food and lodging as we go in Italy, Croatia and France.
Time to get the girls up. More later.
Wow – this is going to be a hard blog to write – to capture in words what we saw today will be difficult.
We left for the Taj Mahal at 7:30 – the sun was just rising and there was a light god as usual. Our driver drove us to the parking area which is still a km away – there we switched to a battery operated – non-polluting bus. The Taj Mahal is made of white marble only found in India – actually quarry about 350km back towards Jaipur. This marble is non-porous and very strong but also translucent. Quite unique – and I is impervious to everything except hydrogen sulphide caused by pollution. This is why all of the industries in Agra have been shut down and moved.
Most are probably aware of the story but basically one of the Emperors wives died in child birth and he was so grief stricken he built this as a mausoleum. Supposedly he was going to build a matching black onyx for himself cross the river. Unfortunately his third son killed the first and second son (as well as the fourth who had allied with him) and deposed his father – locking him in the Agra fort where he could see the Taj but never visit it. When he died he was entombed next to his wife. The kings tomb is the only non-symmetrical component.
The scale is impossible to imagine. From a distance it looks quite like I imagined it but as you walk closer and closer it becomes more and more unbelievable. There are so many cool things – the inscriptions on the entrance gates – prayers from the Koran have bigger letters at the top to make the letters look uniform in size – since the top is further away without this they would appear smaller. There are many optical illusions – you can view the Taj from one of the buildings on the side and when you walk towards and away while viewing through an arch it appears to shrink and grow.
The entire structure is covered with intricate carvings and inlays of precious and semi-precious stones. The amount of labor to move the marble 350 km's, carve it, do the inlay work is difficult to fathom. The descendants of the artisans actually still live and work outside of the south gate.
There are ornamental sarcophaguses in the main area but the actual tomb of the king and queen is in a subbasement that is only open for viewing by the royal family or one a single day in September.
The entrance fee to the Taj was 750 each for Pam and I – the girls were free. I hope some of our pictures do it justice – capturing the scale was difficult. One other thing that was interesting – if there are any visiting VIP's the Taj Mahal is closed to tourists – this is unscheduled – I can only imagine the disappointment of travelling all the way to India only to have it closed.
We found out our driver had never seen the Taj – we tried to think of a way he could come with us but he said he wanted to see it for the first time with his wife – how romantic.
From the Taj we toured the Agra Fort – very impressive – you can only see about 25% as the rest is in use by the Indian Army. When we were leaving we found out that to get confirmed tickets on the flight tomorrow we would have to be back in Delhi by 5om. Our guide wanted us to stop at a carpet store and our driver complied but after asking Mr. Singh about the drive I said we did not have to and we departed. Mr. Sing was very relieved – he would not say anything to the guide but he was very concerned about us making it back in time even though it was only 1pm.
On the way to the Fort we did stop and see a demonstration of the art of inlaying the precious and semi-precious stones in the marble. It was interesting and ys we did buy a beautiful example of this art form – a set of coasters. Allysha also got an small elephant with some basic inlays – and both girls got a small marble elephant with no in-laid stones. We did bargain and felt pretty good about the purchase. I am glad we made this purchase – oh and we could have spent oh so much more…. Very easily.
As we departed Agra Mr Sing asked permission to drive faster – we said of course and so beagn a 3 hour Mr Toads Wild Ride dash to Delhi. I will spare the details but we did not stop for lunch – the girls did not get their customary bathroom breaks and we arrived at the airport in Delhi with only 20 minutes to spare. The girls went for a bathroom and I headed to the Gulf Air office. After about 30 minutes and paying an extra 5500 rupees (which felt like extortion) I had in hand tickets that would allow us to board our flight the next morning – or so we hoped.
We stopped by the carpet place still undecided if we were going to cancel our order – Mohan was a good salesman – we looked at the rugs and still loved them and with a little bargaining we got him to throw in a small rug that Allysha had wanted very badly. We felt better – we signed the rugs and headed back to the hotel. Allysha does not know about the addition – I cannot wait to see her face when we give it to her.
We arrived at the hotel about 8pm – very tired and very hungry – we had to be back at the airport at 3 am so we arranged to be picked up at 2:45 – said goodnight to Mr Singh – ordered room service and ate. It started raining during our meal – I hoped it would not affect our flights.
I fell asleep to be awoken by a phone call from Shonne (travel agent) at 11pm. She asked about the status and in a semi-sleeping state told her what we knew.
I had trouble falling back to sleep – worried about the house and our flights.
