Hello from Pushkar! Have I mentioned that I love camels???

I saw more camels on the ride from Agra to Pushkar than I have ever seen in my life (in total!). They were *everywhere*! They were pulling carts on the road, waiting here and there with full carts or empty carts, having a munch of whatever they put in the feed bags, having a nap, milling around as a herd of camels (alone or with a...camelherder?). It was great :) They shave shapes into the camel's sides, sometimes dying the area (henna?) and then shaving suns or flower shapes. Sometimes it looks like a black camel - an all over dye job :) The other thing we spotted on that ride were the kos markers for the pilgrims making their way to Ajmer. Akbar put the markers in when he was doing pilgrimages to Ajmer from Agra. We also saw some on the road from Fatehpur Sikri to Agra.

On to the Taj Mahal :) We were never going to give it a miss entirely...we just didn't want to go there when we left Delhi - we had had just about enough harassment and we were told it was really bad for tourists in Agra. It was a good thing to delay, too, in hindsight (it's nice when it works out like that :) because I don't think I was ready to see the Taj Mahal, I was too excited to be out on a motorbike those first couple of weeks :)

That evening in Gwalior we decided that we were only going to stay the one night. With the thought in mind that Agra has a reputation as tourist-hell, and the LP saying the place we wanted to be gets booked up, I called to book ahead (we never do that, we just rock up and see what we like). The place *was* booked but they had a sister place so we reserved there...and we were very glad for it, as it was a bit farther out of the melee :)

The ride was easy, and miraculously there was good signage in town :) As I said, the hotel didn't have a sign, so we had a small problem finding it but we got there in the end :) We did not like the smell (that terrible Bangalore smell!!!) of the hotel restaurant so we looked up a decent place to eat in the LP and headed in to town on the motorbike (not necessary, but we didn't know that and I was starved, AGAIN :). The place had a decent view of the Taj Mahal....well, decent enough for us, we hadn't ever seen it and we were already impressed!!! The thali was delicious, when it finally arrived, but it must be said the service was abysmal! But we got to see the Taj Mahal as the sun set and that was well worth it :) We got to bed early so we could get back for dawn...though I don't think either of us slept very well for the excitement :)

The walk to town in the dark was really pleasant. It was chilly and damp, but there was no one about (bliss :). We arrived at the east gate well before the gates opened (it's closest to the hotel) so we decided to make for another gate, but lookee what we found: a cafe open at 6 in the morning (it is so rare, in our experience)...and the coffee was delicious! It's not so much a problem for me being up and about that early without coffee, but A needs a bit of a kick start in the morning, just like her bike :) We were warmed up, wired up and ready for our visitation with this wonder of the world. We were told by the coffee guy that the south gate didn't open until 8am so we hot footed it to the west gate where we forked over some serious cash and in return we each received a ticket, a free bottle of mineral water and some shoe covers.

I will mention the ticket...it was big and blue and said it was 500 rupees, but we had just paid 750 rupees for each one (yes, ladies and gentleman, nearly 10 Pounds or 20 US bucks!). There was also a section with 5 different tourist images with an accompanying punch hole mark (to be punched when you visit) - they punched out the Taj one for us when we entered the gate. On the back it says "visit these sights together" and one of them was Fatehpur Sikri - the implication was that it was an all inclusive ticket. When we went out to Fatehpur Sikri and handed over the ticket they told us that it gave us a 10 rupee discount off the 260 rupee entry fee...even the touts had told us it wasn't an inclusive ticket, so if they knew to tell us I am sure it was fooling a lot of people. It's just another way they stick it to the tourists when they come to town. It would be interesting to see how many foreigners went to any sights in the US or the UK if they were asked to pay 20 times what the locals pay (which is typical, the Taj was nearly 40 times what the locals pay) to get in....ok, enough about the cost :)

It was still really dark when we came through the gate. The coffee guy had told us that call to prayer at the mosque inside the Taj complex was at 6:10, but we didn't hear it. We arrived at the platform (where all the photos that are known all over are taken) and there was already a crowd and the crowd was growing! We didn't want to be part of that, so we decided to head down the side. It was starting to lighten up and the Taj was sitting there very peacefully wearing a lovely soft grey. We did the tourist thing and stopped every few feet and took photos....the best of our photos (we had 220 of them!!!!) were from much later anyway, but we were so mesmerised we wanted to record it all!!!

This is one of those early photos :)


A parked her butt on a bench and I went up to the main platform (it's on a raised platform so that when you look at it there is only sky is behind it - smart design, eh? ). There was a sign that said "no shoes" and another one that said "please don't remove shoes here" so, of course, I took my shoes off there :) I didn't remember my shoe covers in my pocket - I am already very used to having to remove my shoes to go into temples...at least I didn't look as silly as most of the people - wearing shoe covers over skimpy sandals (what were they thinking, anyway?? It was bloody freezing!) I walked around the building, feeling the cool marble, taking tons of detail photos, watching people and generally having a good time - I was feeling like I was glowing :)

I was very impressed with the details - you only ever get to see the main shot, who knew there were such intricate inlays and carvings all over the surface? Not me, obviously :) I went inside to see the tombs (or the tomb place holders, the real tombs are locked in the basement). No photos are allowed inside, but the inlays are even more intricate and they cover both tombs (that of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan) like a highly decorated floral bedsheet. If you got the light just right you could see the surface reflection of the inlay and you could see all the little pieces that made up each small flower - AMAZING! Around the tombs, except for directly in front of them, there was a carved marble screen that was also amazingly carved. Some serious work went into the building of this monument!

No one knows who the architect was, outside of Shah Jahan, of course. And I would suspect that he was the driving force in its design - the building exudes the love he felt for his wife. I felt that when we had seen it the night before from the rooftop restaurant. I know that I will not be able to say anything truly profound, so I won't even try :) But the building seemed alive to me when I was viewing it from a distance - like the surface of the building was real skin. Up close it is less alive, but no less beautiful. It was so much more than anything I had seen in countless photos...you just have to be there and see it with your own eyes. We have seen some really fabulous things on the trip so far, but this is right up there near the top of the heap!

It was well worth it to get our butts out of bed for the sunrise, not just because of the light reflecting off the dome, but because we only had to share the place with a hundred or so people when we arrived....and maybe a thousand by the time we headed out of there a couple of hours later :) The touts were out in full force by the time we were on the road to Fatehpur Sikri and when we came back into town the queues to get into the west gate had 50 people in them to get through security (we had waltzed through without waiting at all :)

Here ends our story of the visit to teh Taj Mahal :) We are now in camel country and should be celebrating A's birthday from the back of a camel in about a week's time...stay tuned :)