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Agra, India
23° 55' N 77° 33' E
Aug 04, 2008 21:43
Distance 897km

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Other entries in Agra

Taj Mahal

Text written in: English

So we left Amristar with the intention firstly of just getting out of there, and secondly just getting as far as Delhi. Once we arrived in Delhi, we realised we could get all the way to Agra with a connecting train.

 We hung around Delhi for a few hours and then got the 6 o'clock train to Agra arriving in about 10pm at night. We had a couple of places we were going to try and see, and one place booked for one night as a back up. We arrived to be greeted by a swarm of touts, who kindly wanted to ferry us to all the local hotels. Now these guys were different from the other ones we've encountered, they dont just leave you at the hotel, they come out of the car, start conversing with the hotel staff and security and get fairly pushy. Obviously looking for their commission. Now we tried three hotels, and would you believe it, all where booked out with the exception of one, which had the honeymoon suite available for one night only. Now to say we were tried and irrated would be an understatement. 

But the manager himself brought us up to see the room. Firstly there was no view, apart from the hotel swimming pool, no taj, no nothing. He kept going on about it, and the more I told him this didnt impress me, the more he'd go on about it. Next we came to the price, I think it was something around 100eu for the night, but seeing as it was already 11pm by the time we got there, and he wouldn't really do us a better deal we left. We did see too girls come in after us who looked to be in the same mood as ourselves and we reckon they just settled on it straight away. 

 So we decided to go for our backup at that stage, it was 11.30. We decided to get a tuk-tuk to our destination. Only after realising that we had walked nearly a kilometer down the equivalent of a dual carraige way, with the largest swarms of insects I've ever laid my eyes on did we settle on the tuk-tuk. You literally had to shield your mouth when you where passing the lights. Anyway we got to a tuk-tuk, which for some reason was swarmed by about 10 locals all willing to offer us help as our driver didnt really understand English all too well. We asked him to bring us to the Agra Ashok and in true Indian fashion he nodded and said yes. We showed him the map, he turned about and starting heading in the opposite direction to which we set off, and we eventually managed to find the hotel, because I recognised the resturant sign from the hotel. Other than that, god knows where he was going to bring us.

So the sight, the Taj Mahal is something else, it just looks like it is air brushed onto the horizon. You dont actually believe it is there until you get up close beside it. Took some of great snaps of it, and as I keep saying I'll get them posted here when I get a chance. Its billed as the greastest monument built for love, as the Emperor Shah Jahan had it commissioned after his "second" wife died in child birth. His hair was said to have turned white as the marble over night, after the shock of his wifes death. 20,000 workers where said to have worked on the Taj and when they finished it, all their hands where amputaited so they would never again recreate its magnificance. All in the name of love eh? ;-)

So we did a few more forts after that, watched the view of the Taj from the neighbouring rooftop resturants a few of the nights and then departed on our way to Jaipur.