We left my place around 530am. We were supposed to leave earlier but Rahul had a late night and there's no way in hell I can drive in India – not that I want to – and I wanted to get to Agra and back in one piece. I let him sleep in a bit before calling to wake him up. The first stop was to get coffee, drinks, snacks, etc. The ride down was great. We listened to music, talked. The ride was about the same distance as to Rishikesh, but it only took 3 hours to arrive instead of 8-12. Score!
At first we stopped off at a tomb just on the outside of Agra in Sikandara, called Akbar's Tomb. Since we arrived around 9-9:30, it was still pretty early and Akbar's Tomb looked amazing. I figured after seeing the Taj Mahal, I'd be too exhausted and tired to stop and see anything else. Luckily, I was right. I only had to pay 100 bucks to get in to this place. It's set on 60 square acres. Like everything Mughal, it's all precisely planned. There are gardens to either side of the walkway from the main (south) entrance to the tomb. There were plenty of deer, antelope, and peacocks on the grass. I didn't see a sign that said you couldn't be down there but because no one else was, I didn't step out on to the grass. Most tombs feature “false tombs” where you can pay homage but the real dead body tomb is some where in the basement. There were several "tombs" towards the out of the building housing Akar's body. Quickly slip off your shoes and you can walk down to the basement to see Akbar's actual tomb. There's a man that stands guard over it. The room has a high vaulted ceiling and the man would sing prayers to the gods. It'd echo throughout the room and sounded amazing!
Apparently Akbar was quite the ruler. He built a huge empire and basically helped everyone to get along. I think the sign outside the tomb says it best so I'm going to post pictures what was written:
Definitely this tomb was elegant and peaceful. Akbar did an amazing job designing it! After we got hassled by touts to buy elephants (“2 for 200 bucks. No? How about 3 for 200?” “Ma'am, how would you like postcards. The whole book for 50. Okay, how about 30?”), we set off for the glory in all it's splendor, the Taj Mahal! I thought the touts at Akbar's Tomb were bad, there weren't ANYTHING compared to the ones at the Taj Mahal. It's really really sad to see so many people trying to rip you off left and right while you attempt to see devotional love in it's pure form. It's worse than the kids that stand out on the street intersections of Delhi trying to sell you random crap!
We found a parking spot. You could walk, take a rickshaw, or ride a camel rickshaw to the entrance of the Taj Mahal. I wasn't too happy with all the touts so I decided to walk. Up until the end of the 1-1.5km trek, we had touts trying to get us to take their rickshaw for only 40 bucks, then 30, then 20. Oh and there were TONS of vendors selling souvenirs. Rahul's dad had talked to me about these vendors when I met him. He told me that almost all vendors say they're selling marble but it's really only soap-stone which dissolves quickly. I knew not to buy into their words, no matter how "cheap" they were willing to go. We were low on paani at that point so we hit the restaurant just outside the gates to get some water and cool down in the AC before hitting the pavement again. The food was really good but the power went out about 5 minutes after sitting down. It was cooler than outside, but I was still sweating a bunch.
I had to pay 750 bucks ($18) to get into the Taj Mahal, it came with a “free” guide, shoe covers, and a small bottle of cool water. The cool water didn't stay cool for very long. It was around 1130am at that point and the sun was beating down. I kept trying to sip the water but when it's warm, it's hard to swallow. We walked around the complex a bit. There's a museum within the Taj Mahal area but the power cut out there too and as soon as we stepped in, I couldn't breathe and I started pouring out buckets of sweat.
Rahul kept trying to tell me that being there wasn't simply enough. I really needed to go up to the Taj Mahal to see it's beauty up close. The problem was, the heat was making me dizzy, my head felt like it was in a vice, he didn't get shoe covers (that's what you get for 20 bucks vs 750), and I know for a fact that if the stone pathways were as hot as they were, the marble Taj Mahal would be a million times worse. I convinced him to sit in the shade up close to the Taj while I cooled down. He asked me to ask a foreigner for their shoe covers. I told him to go through the garbage and get a pair out. He said it was gross. Then all of a sudden a whole big group of Indians rushed towards the garbage can and started sifting through the shoe covers. Apparently, the marble WAS that hot. Then one of the shoe attendants went through and grabbed all the good ones and proceeded to sell them to those who wanted them for 20 bucks a pair. Haha!
After that we decided to see if the museum's power was back on. It wasn't. Then I realized there was a GeoCache at the Taj Mahal! However, the idiot that I am, left my phone in the trunk of the car so I had less that could be snatched from me. I thought the tree was “156” so we searched and searched for the micro cache but came up short. Rahul was convinced it had been collected up as garbage. I was convinced we didn't look hard enough, got home and it was tree “338”...d'oh! Then we took some more pictures of me with the mighty Taj and decided it was time for the AC car. We took a rickshaw back to the car. He conveniently stopped short so we could buy souvenirs from some crap stand. One kid followed me all the way down to our car trying to get me to buy 4 "marble" necklaces for only 200! Ignoring him did not work. Not only that, I didn't have any small change on me and I wasn't about to be given counterfeit money, a problem at the Taj.
I took some pictures of the Agra Fort as we passed by it. The place was amazingly beautiful and HUGE but I felt like up-chucking so I decided it was not worth the effort. Then I decided that I have to come back when its nice (i.e. not the summer time) and see this all again, with vigour! Rahul kept telling me he didn't want me to regret not doing all this before I leave. Quite honestly, I'd regret dying just to see it. I'm definitely come back and hopefully again this year! Theres just too much here to see in 2 months, even if you were to do nothing but tour the whole time.
I fell asleep in the car and Rahul woke me shortly before an exit where there's a Hare Krishna temple. I thought it was the HUGE statue that we saw coming down. Turns out, that was a different temple. We took pictures of that from the road. He asked me if I wanted to go in and take pictures but I felt it'd be a little disrespectful. He agreed. So we high-tailed it home from that point and stopped off in New Friends Colony (Delhi) to get Pizza Hut, came back to my place, had a quite bite to eat, and then time for bed. The problem is, I am too excited about my day to sleep. So I figured I'd write a blog first and then try to sleep.
Agra was a smelly, extremely dirty town; but it holds such beautiful old charming buildings. I have to come back and visit! And if there's one thing you should do before you die, it's travel to all the world sights that have awe-inspired you during your life. I guarantee you'll be a much happier person for it.
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On a side note, I got home and someone had been in my apartment rummaging through my dirty laundry. WTF?! Aunty and Uncle kept trying to replace the lock on my door cause they didn't have a key. They said it was for emergencies. I figured they wanted to snoop. Last I checked, going through clothes was not an emergency. How do I know it was done? I distinctly remember placing my black PJ bottoms at the top of the pile while I was getting ready to take a bath. And my undies were in the bottoms. When I got home, everything else was in order but a bunch of my shirts were at the top, the PJ's were down lower part of the basket, and my undies weren't in the bottoms. I can't call Aunty and Uncle out on that cause they would deny it and cause more problems. And while it wouldn't bother me if they wanted to search my room because they're snoops – I have nothing to hide in here – it bothers me that the only thing out of place were my clothes. If this is going to happen every time I leave, I don't want to be here!! What the heck should I do?
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