The Taj Mahal

I m unable to sleep these days if I am to wake up at an early hour the following morning, and tonight was no exception.

We have booked a taxi at 5 am in order to be ahead of the hordes who hot foot it to Agra to view the Taj Mahal, if not at sunrise, then at a time when the temperatures, which have been officially declared the hottest March in 5 years in the Delhi area, get out of hand.

I got up at 4 30 and boiled myself a bucket of water - it takes about 10 minutes to heat up quite enough hot water for what my Yorkshire born mother would have called a 'right good wash'…had she not been taught to speak posh!

I rolled decorously around on the bathroom floor washing everything which in that position is accessible, and even had a few jugs full of hot water left over for a rather pleasant additional rinse just for the sake of it.

I dressed, made sure the boys were up (they had declared themselves worried that they would not be, but they were!) and headed out to meet our taxi driver whose name escapes me!

We headed off into the traffic - surprisingly thin for that time of the morning - and off to the Agra Highway, which for a large part of the 200 or kilometres there, is actually a 3 lane highway complete with its own toll booths.

The driving on the road is no better than anywhere else, with lorries hogging the fast lanes, almost every piece of overtaking being done on the inside, and occasionally cars, motorcycles, walkers and above all motorised rick shows headed the wrong way down the motorway…. often in the contraflowing fast lane. Get the picture? It was, especially whilst still dark quite quite terrifying and I am pleased that Oscar and Tom were able to sleep through it!

The sunrise was wonderful off to our left and I am afraid I inveigled our driver to stop a few times in order for me to take some very atmospheric shots over the misty fields towards the rising sun. 

I stopped a few more times to dive into small villages we passed through to take photos of people and things as we passed and found at least my human subjects smiley and willing to be photographed….the animal subject were a little less forthcoming !

We stopped for a quick but rather good breakfast in a roadside service stations which looked more like a wimpy bar from the 1970's before heading off again towards Agra.

The filthy conglomeration of Delhi we left behind was replaced by the equally filthy conglomeration of Agra, and we were stuck in queues amidst belching fumes for far too long. It was awful…at least for me who has a pathological dislike of queues at the best of times!

We entered the carpark serving the Taj Mahal and were immediately set up by the usual fakirs and chancres, but did employ a very pleasant guide who was to spend 1 1/2 hours with is for about 17£ Not bad in my view

We were allocated 'foreigner' tickets which meant no queues at all to get in and soon we were gasping at the sight of the Taj Mahal, which I first saw over 30 years ago. I am unsure but I think Oscar was slightly overcome by its majestic beauty! Doesn't surprise me.

To my surprise I was approached first by spmeone who asked me for my autograph and then by someone else who asked to be photographed with me. I suspect it was because I had managed to find a rather splendid Panama hat in the carpark (I had been trying to find one for ages) and so looked a little like the epitome of an eccentric Englishman!

We learned all sorts of things about the Turkish Architect of the Taj, why Jihan built it (in memory of his young wife who dies after giving birth to the 14ht child in 8 years!) and also found out one or two less savoury things about him, mainly that in fact the Taj Mahal was in large part paid for by donations from his subjects! Oh well…. the Indian way.

We sat for a few minutes in the gardens and stared at the building before being shepherded into a gift shop on the pretext of seeing how the descendants of the people that built the original….were able to continue the habit….oh, no excuse me…how they run shops selling strengthened alabaster pretending it is marble and trying to rip off the tourists !

We decided against going to Fakherpur Sukir - as the road there and back to Delhi was too bad - I distantly remember the same excuse being given 30 or so years ago - and so headed back to Delhi once again in the heat of the day in a car where the aircon was shall we say a title feeble!

We stopped once again at a service station where I commandeered the kitchen to make myself a Chapatti based pizza which was rather good and devoid of all spice, before heading back to the hostel where we spent the rest of the evening taking it easy!