It's a Goodbye to Incredible India. Part #2

Delhi to Agra and back again.

The Taj Mahal is one of those places that is as awe inspiring as you'd hopefully expect it to be. Not least the fact it's nestled in a place that isn't exactly the prettiest town in the world - Agra - as with most Indian towns and cities I've described so far, litter and poverty is as prolific here as anywhere else. There's just no escaping it. But somehow, because it's the home of the Taj Mahal, this aspect to indian culture appears more striking.

On the trip in from Delhi (the 7.15am - taj express, a four hour train journey) I noticed one stop prior to Agra station a group of sharply dressed young men get on the train and conspicuously scout up and down our carraige obviously looking for something... now, call me paranoid, but my first thought was of Goondas (indian gangsters) - perhaps mainly due to the fact the book I'm reading (Shantaram) focuses a great deal on the indian underworld and these guys seemed to fit the description perfectly of the hoods depicted within it's pages...

My second (and more down to earth guess, which turned out to be correct) was that these guys were the first wave of locals, scouting to see how many Goras (white tourists) there were to ply their trade - namely "the best guides money could buy" - it was no coincidence the well dressed young man who'd eyeballed me from across the carraigeway was the one who shadow us from off the train, along the platform, out of the station, across the car park and along the road for quiet a while, at all times explaining that we need a guide otherwise we'd miss out, and as he soon realised we weren't getting any rickshaws or taxis he began to explain that the taj was 9kms away and that we couldn't walk all the way... "we like to walk we said..." and with that, he gave up on us and ran back to the station...

You see Simon and I had devised a plan, a plan to avoid the high costs demanded of tourists outside train stations.... tourists either too afraid or inexperienced to step off the pavement and join the locals, walk the streets, avoid the traps. The trick to this is to be ignorant of everything around you and just walk... English find this very hard to do, they're far too polite - and it takes time to adapt... but we ignored the hawkers, the guides, the taxis wallahs, the rickshaw wallahs and moved beyond the range of the station by some way... eventually a rickshaw pulled up beside us as we were walking up the road towards the main town. "60 rupees" He said after we asked him to take us the red fort (which I should have called the Agra Fort - stupid me :S ) - naturally he didn't understand where this was and kept saying "Taj Mahal?" instead... we argued him down to 30 rupees and he happily agreed... 9kms later and a trip to his dad, to ask directions, we arrived at the agra fort... (30 rupees is about 32p)

Agra fort was built yonks ago towards the start of the 1st millenia (1000AD). Mughal empires rose and fell around it, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again and rebuilt, fortified further only to fall to the British who garrisoned it and turned it into an arsenal. It's an impressive size and much more ornate than the european equivalents, typical in it's Mughal stlying, taking its queues from islamic scripture and philosophy. It was the hub of India for centuries being the countries capital during the reign of the mughals (starting around 1550AD) - it's got quite a history.

One of the key aspects of the fort is it's the place where ShaJahan was incarcerated until his death after his son rebelled against him and took his throne - pesky kids, you just can't trust them. At the time I'm sure it was fairly bad for ShaJahan, but when actually visit his "prison" you realise that it's not exactly the Bangkok Hilton... more like Paris Hilton (the place, not the waif like, 'it' girl with a penchant for pink, small dogs, short skirts and naughty videos)

This Prison was luxurious to the max, more like a palace than a jail... but then again it WAS a palace within a reasonably small section of the whole of the fort. The saddest part is, is that this section of the fort and the prison overlooks the Yamuna River, gazing from here the Taj Mahal is clearly visible, the final resting place of Shah Jahan's beloved wife... a mere 2 km's or so to the east-south-east. It's from this vantage point he would have sat and remembered her never being able to visit the monument himself... until after his death.

We lunched during the heat of the midday sun and ventured onwards to the relative sanctity and peace of the Taj Complex. Having been a number of times I shrugged off the numerous attempts made by the guides at the gate, I also warned simon about the rigorous search the security/armed police make of your bags on entering... any contraband goods are carted away and placed in 'secure' lockers to be collected upon exiting... of course in typical style simon got away scot free even with all his fancy electronica... me? well... it seems MP3 players aren't allowed and neither are playing cards... beats me! So, those both went into the 'secure' unit... consisting of a metal box with no lock - you're then handed a hand written torn piece of paper with your inventory written in hindi and told "no lose, no lose, get later..." - fair enough... crude... but hopefully effective? So, sans Ipod and deck of cards we passed the gun toting guards and entered into the first courtyard of the 7th wonder of the world...

There are three gates into the first courtyard, we entered from the south, one of the lesser used entrances. The courtyard is flanked on all four sides with a covered walkway and small rooms. TMoving in from there are four lawns (no walking) and in the center of the yard is a large plaza. Exiting this plaza to the north is the Main Gateway that you pass through to enter the Famous Garden that sits before majestic monument.

Of course, much has been written of the Taj Mahal, some of it true, some of it myth. I can't add anything to what's already been written, suffise to say it is a marvel it really is. It's so familiar though that it can appear quite surreal at first, everyone's seen it - on postcards, on the TV and probably most regularly down the local curry house on the wall in some form or other. But none of that can prepare you for the real thing.

Initially we sat quietly, away from the crowds just soaking in the ambience. We had time to kill so we killed it. After an hour so it was time to approach the main event... we joined the masses and began our walk towards it. It looms and get's bigger and you look and gaze up towards it in fascination. It's then you realise you've got another 100 yards or so left before you reach the base. It really is rather big...


We left just before sunset in a bid to get my gear left at the gate and catch the train back to Delhi, having just been told off by machine gun toting cops to get off the grass... you don't argue with guys with guns... so we got off the grass - besides there were signs saying not to walk on the grass... and in india signs tend to be ignored so we ignored them... but still... guns... cops... it was a no win situation...

It was a good day. and as we were leaving the complex simon commented that "I won't forget that in a hurry..."

nuff said.