Agra Beyond the Taj Mahal

Pictures...

Teg- Beyond the Taj, Agra itself definitely offered some interesting experiences. We arrived the day we think was the finale of Ramadan, because there was non-stop music all day and all night (till 4 am..)in the surrounding area around the Taj Mahal. On almost every street corner there were dangling lights and speakers where excessively loud music catered to little or no people. It was weird. I went up to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant that night at around 10pm to grab us some waters, and while there I was able to look down at what sounded like some crazy street party, only to witness bare and empty.Music was still on full volume.

Easy making conversation with other foreigners the next morning; few of us were able to drown out the streets’ festivies.

We had just enough time in Agra before our next train to see Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, both were well worth it! After taking it easy after our sunrise with the Taj, we biked west from the Taj over to Agra Fort, 5 km or so. Well when I mean bike, Mike biked. Though he wasn’t feeling all that great all morning, he suddenly had this massive boost of energy, allowing both me and the rickshaw ‘driver’ to sit and enjoy a great ride! Pretty smooth actually, handled the mad traffic well and signalled more than anyone else!!haha! Downfall: we still had to pay once we got there. The ‘driver’ was all smiles though, nothing beats a paid break!

The best part about Agra Fort was that it had great views of the Taj Mahal. Most of the grounds inside the fort were inaccessible, occupied by either the military or the Archaeology Survey of India. Part of the fort seemed relatively new, somehow recently renovated while other parts were quite old and dilapidated. The area accessible to us was much smaller than I had anticipated, yet it didn’t really matter as long as we had that eastern look-out.

Our last day in Agra was dedicated to Fatehpur Sikri, this beautiful fortified ancient city some 40 kilometres from town. It was a beautiful place. There were many well kept gardens and lawns all over, and the architecture, well, it was something else. It really did seem like a city because there were many buildings and halls everywhere, all over a relatively large area. The mosque too was beautiful, but it seemed almost expected after everything else we had seen that day. This mosque is still in use today and thus was quite busy. We didn’t end up staying there for too long.

We experienced one of the proto-typical moves played by drivers during this outing. Though we have come across this sorta thing before, this time it seemed a little more annoying.

 

Mike – Firstly, we overshot our Agra stop en route by train. It was the middle of the night. We both woke up and went outside to check and see where we were only to discover that we had overslept, and were an hour past Agra. Our only option was to stay up all night at the train station and grab a second class ticket for the 6:15am direct train to Agra. Two months in India, and we still haven’t gotten the hang of the trains…

It was our first experience riding second class, and it really wasn’t all that bad. It was actually pretty funny seeing all the men sleeping up in the luggage compartments.

Agra, itself, was quite a struggle. I got sick again the day we went to Fatehpur Sikri, so I actually didn’t get to see much as I spent my day within sprinting distance of the washroom. The night before was horrible, as Teg describes above. It was the most obnoxious festival I’ve ever encountered. It was so loud that you couldn’t sit in a restaurant within the Taj Gank area and have a conversation. It was an unrelenting assault on your patience; the same song over and over again. Even the next day our taxi driver to Fatehpur Sikri decided to play that song at full blast on his car stereo; you just could not escape it. I still haven’t been able to listen to my I-Pod. I feel I’ve lost my taste for music.

I can’t really comment on Fatehpur Sikri, but Agra Fort was very nice. We are now in Rajahstan, and I get the feeling that we are about to be overloaded with Mughal forts (Jaipur has three) and Raj Palaces, so I’ll keep this description to a minimum, as there will be many more to come...