Saturday 08 February

Agra

This morning was a big highlight – we were up at 0500 and out of our hotel by 0530 to walk to the Taj Mahal. The morning was dark still – the road to the east gate entrance of the Taj Mahal is wide and slopes gently down with perforated light columns every few metres. There were cows and dogs  wandering around (monkeys weren’t awake yet) and there were even some early morning runners. On one side of the road was the Taj protected forest by the river Yamuna and the stroll was a lovely, peaceful start to the day.

There was a small queue forming already to get in to the Taj Mahal  – so we were glad that we’d made the effort to arrive before the crowds. The number of people really swelled quickly. The security was super-serious, scanners (us and bags) and body searches and bag searches – all a bit chaotic, but we were in by 0700, just before sunrise. 

I don’t think I could ever do justice to the feeling of being in the Taj Mahal. It’s one of the seven wonders of the modern world (along with Colosseum in Rome, Petra in Jordan, Chichén Itzá in Mexico, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Machu Picchu in Peru and The Great Wall of China). It’s breathtaking and being there felt very special and emotional. The changing light as the sun rose really changed how Taj Mahal looked and the atmosphere.

Commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, as a mausoleum for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal who died aged 38 while giving birth to their fourteenth child. Construction in phases took 22 years. 

Inside (no photographs allowed) are the likenesses of the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan with the actual burials in the basement.

The gardens are divided into four quadrants that were further subdivided into four and originally filled with flowers and fruit trees, in Muslim belief, heavenly paradise is a garden, but by the time that the British Raj began in 1858 the gardens had become overgrown and the were remodelled in the style of a 19th century London park, which is how they still appear today.

After our visit we walked quietly back to our hotel for breakfast and arranged a late checkout. I’d thought that we might go to the Agra (Red) Fort this afternoon (completed in 1573 and the main residence of the Mughal rulers until 1638, when they moved to Delhi. It’s vast – really a walled city). But after the Taj Mahal, I didn’t really want to see any more  sights – and I knew that the Agra Fort would be incredible. I just didn’t think I could – and wasn’t sure that I wanted – to take anything more in. Furthermore, we’d gone past the fort last night on our way to and from  Chand Baori and the Taj Mahal viewpoint and also we were going to be taking a train from Agra Fort station at 18:20, so I had seen the outside already and I imagined that there’d be some time to look at the outside of the Agra Fort later.

We rested up and headed out for some late lunch at the vegan restaurant that we visited last night. We used the very new and clean and largely empty Agra Metro – that was good fun.

We went back to our hotel to collect our bags and then back to the metro that would take us to Agra Fort station (and our last glimpse of the Taj Mahal) for our night train.

We didn’t really see much more of the Agra Fort, which was a shame – but sometimes something has to give and I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see more.

At Agra station a couple of young men from the Netherlands asked us about the trains – lots of good chat followed about the vagaries of the trains and the website dnd the platform signs and the carriage signs and the platform alterations. While we taking we watched a monkey on the platform run up behind a man carrying a bag of biscuits and snatch it out of his hand then run away. The man was too sensible to give chase and the cheeky (or just very hungry) monkey sat on the ground, opened the bag and ate the lot!

The young men were interesting and interested – they were in India for two weeks and were also hoping to get to Mexico, New York and Quebec. One wanted to study medicine, the other was less certain – but perhaps criminology! I think that the young people we’ve met who are travelling around without much by way of money, in what to them must be very strange and difficult to navigate countries are an inspiration  – I rather wish that I’d had their wherewithal when I was their age.

We were all going to be boarding the same train  – they were going to Vatanesi, too – but we were changing to our sleeper train after two stops at Tundla Junction. We got off on a station that was absolutely heaving. I’d no idea how we’d all fit on our train – which was an hour late. Matthew was anxious that we might not be able to get on – the platform signs weren’t showing where each carriage would stop and if we were in the wrong place on the platform, what with the length of the train and the huge crowds, we’d be unlikely to get from one end of the train to the other before it left if the need arose. To add to the chaos there was a last-minute change of platform!

Thankfully a porter came to our rescue and led us to where our carriage was likely to be. Once the train arrived, Matthew made a dash for our allocated carriage door and boarded the train – I was stuck behind a barrow piled high with luggage and surrounded by dozens of people who were also trying to get on. A couple of train attendants were simultaneously pushing people away from the door to prevent them getting into a carriage and grabbed me and pulled me on! This was extraordinary – there’s no way I’d have made it on to the train otherwise. It doesn’t bear thinking about – Matthew on his way to Varanasi and me 600km / 400 miles away in Tundla Junction!