Touring Agra

We woke up well before dawn today to go as a group to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise - supposedly the best time to go see it. A car picked us up at 545a and away we went.

Yesterday, while there were a lot of people overall, the queue to get in was quite short. Maybe 2 min. But for sunrise, it was massive. And the women's queue moved far slower than the men's. Ani and Barry made it through in 10 min, maybe 15, but the Tina and the other women must have been there for close to an hour. The sun was basically up by the time they got through.

Early in the morning, it was quite hazy. Ended up being a very different view of the Taj Mahal than we saw yesterday. Eerie almost. Was very cool to see it in different light.

And also, Christian Bale was there.

After the Taj Mahal, we grabbed breakfast at the hotel and packed our things. We had our driver for the whole day, our train back to Delhi wasn't until 9pm but we had to check out at noon. It was nice to be able to just throw all our collective luggage into the bus and go see more sites.

First stop (or really second) was the Agra Fort. Built by Akbar in the 16th century, it was an enormous, red sandstone enclosure - encompassing a wide variety of buildings. It was very well preserved, and we spent a couple hours wandering around the grounds exploring. The fort contained multiple mosques, the remnants of the apartments for Akbar's harem (housing 5000 women... as you do), a beautiful glass/mirror hall (which unfortunately we were not allowed entry), a large black, basaltic rock used as a throne, and a terrace overlooking the Yamana River with a beautiful view of the Taj Mahal in the distance. Shah Jehan (the emperor who built the Taj Mahal) was also imprisoned here by his own son.

After the Agra Fort, we went to see the Baby Taj. Or at least the group did - we saw it the day before so we just stayed in the van and read.

Unfortunately, once again, we were denied the chance to see Akbar's Tomb for traffic reasons. Sad face.

The sun sets super early here. Like 530. And then it's gets very dark very fast... so we're a bit limited. After the Baby Taj, we went shopping. Our driver took us to an artisan shop where they did marble decorations - they etched into marble and inserted semiprecious stones (like lapis lazuli, turquoise, mother of pearl, malachite, etc.). The craftsmanship was excellent.

We found a plate we really liked - white marble with intricate lotus flower designs of lapis lazuli, so Barry got to haggling. The list price was $600. Barry's opening bid was $250. After about 30 minutes, we walked out of there with the plate and another small piece (listed at $45) for a combined $440. Was that a good deal? Who knows. But the plate is truly a work of art, and thankfully we can send it to Chicago with our friends on Saturday so we dont have to schlep around India with it. Pictures to follow at some point.

After this shop, we moved onto a different shop which had substantially lower quality work, so we didnt spend too much time looking at anything.

A small dinner followed, and then we just headed to the train station and then off to Delhi. We got to our hotel around midnight and passed out.Read more