9-11
October, Sunday – Tuesday Agra, the Taj Mahal, and the trip
home
The morning after our wonderful tiger sighting we
left Ranthambore National Park for the drive to Agra. It would take about 5 ½ hours to reach Agra
and again the traffic was as bad as it has been on all our other drives. As we neared Agra, we stopped at Fatehpur
Sikri, once the short-lived capital of the Mughal Empire. We were met by a local guide who showed us
around this ancient city. According to
the itinerary given to us by Tour My India, Fatehpur Sikri was a city in ruins;
however, only a small section was in ruins and the rest of the city was
magnificent. Fatehpur Sikri was built by
Emperor Akbar between 1571 and 1581 in honor of the great Sufi saint Salim Chishti.
Akbar had visited the village of Sikri
to consult with Salim Chishti, who predicted the birth of an heir to the Mughal
throne. When the prophecy came true,
Akbar built his new capital here, including a stunning mosque, which is still
in use today.
Fatehpur Sikri is considered one of the finest
examples of Mughal architecture. Akbar's
tolerant religious views and interest in literature, architecture and fine arts
gave the buildings at Fatehpur Sikri a charismatic blend of Islamic and Hindu
elements in their style and design. In
fact, Akbar had three wives, one a Hindu, one a Muslim, and the third a
Christian. Each wife had her own palace
within the city walls of Fatehpur Sikri.
Supposedly
the area where the city was built suffered from water shortages and Fatehpur
Sikri was abandoned shortly after Akbar’s death.
Our
guide gave us a tour of the beautiful mosque. In order to visit the mosque, we
had to take off our shoes. Unfortunately
I had not worn any socks so I had to walk barefoot inside the mosque and
courtyard area. It was extremely hot on
my feet, although in some places they had placed mats on the marble tiles to
make walking easier. Inside the inner courtyard was the Tomb of the
Sufi saint Salim Christi. The
single-story structure is built around a central square chamber, within which
is the grave of the saint, under an ornate wooden canopy encrusted with
mother-of-pearl mosaic. Surrounding it is a covered passageway where people
walk around and tie a little piece of string on the pierced screens around the
tomb. As they tie the string with three
knots, they make three wishes. Our
guide got us one of the pieces of string and we joined the throngs of people
tying the strings to the screens. It was
much harder than it looked. The openings
in the stone-pierced screens were very small and my fingers had a hard time
looping the string around one of the openings.
I finally just tied my string to another string that was already there.
Following
our tour of Fatehpur Sikri, we drove on to Agra where we checked into our
hotel. This was by far one of the nicest
hotels we had stayed in India and they had a very nice restaurant. We had an early night as we would have to be
up early tomorrow to visit the Taj Mahal.
The
next morning we left the hotel at 6 AM for the short drive to the Taj
Mahal. We wanted to get there early to
see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. It was
amazing how many people were already there when we arrived (the place opened at
6 AM). We had to go into two separate
lines – one for females and one for males.
In addition to the walk-through screening device, we were all patted
down by the security forces there. It
took about 30 minutes to get through security, but once in we had our first
view of the Taj Mahal. To say it was
magnificent is an understatement. It was
gleaming white in the early morning sun.
From a distance, the sky looked grayish, but as you walked closer to the
Taj Mahal, the sky became bluer. Unfortunately
today they had drained the water from the reflecting pools so we were not able
to see the reflection of the Taj Mahal in the water.
The Taj
Mahal was commissioned in 1632 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (reigned
1628–1658 and grandson of Emperor Akbar), to house the tomb of his favorite
wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Persian
princess who died giving birth to their 14th child. It took about 22 years to complete. The tomb is the centerpiece of a 42-acre
complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal
gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. Construction of the mausoleum was essentially
completed in 1643 but work continued on other phases of the project for another
10 years. About 20,000 laborers worked on the
construction. The Taj Mahal complex is
believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at
the time to be around 32 million rupees, which today would be approximately
$827 million.
Everything
about the Taj Mahal is symmetrical. Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb is the central focus of
the entire complex of the Taj Mahal. It
is a large, white marble structure standing on a square plinth and consists of
a symmetrical building with an iwan (an arch-shaped doorway) topped by a large
dome and finial. Like most Mughal tombs,
the basic elements are Persian in origin.
On each corner of the square plinth are marble minarets. The main chamber houses the false sarcophagi
of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan; the actual graves are at a lower level. In fact, the only thing that is not
symmetrical is the sarcophagus of Shah Jahan.
It is placed to the left of his wife’s sarcophagus.
At the far end of
the complex are two grand red sandstone buildings that mirror each other, and
face the sides of the tomb. The western building is a mosque and the other is
thought to have been constructed for architectural balance although it may have
been used as a guesthouse.
Soon
after the Taj Mahal's completion, Shah Jahan was deposed by his son Aurangzeb
and put under house arrest at nearby Agra Fort. It was there that he could look out and see
the tomb of his beloved wife. It is said
that he died looking out at the Taj Mahal.
Upon Shah Jahan's death, Aurangzeb buried him in the mausoleum next to
his wife.
After
leaving the Taj Mahal, we returned to hotel for breakfast and to check out of our room. Our guide and driver then took us to visit the
Agra Fort (or Red Fort). Today only part
of the Fort is open to the public; the rest is part of the Indian Army.
Agra Fort is the
former imperial residence of the Mughal Dynasty. It is about 2.5 km northwest of the Taj Mahal
and can be more accurately described as a walled city. Construction of the massive
red-sandstone fort, on the bank of the Yamuna River, was begun by Emperor Akbar
in 1565, and was both a strategic military installation as well as the royal
residence. Surrounding the fort was a crocodile-infested moat.
Further additions were made, particularly by his grandson
Shah Jahan, using his favorite building material – white marble. The fort was
built primarily as a military structure, but Shah Jahan transformed it into a
palace, and later it became his gilded prison for eight years after his son
Aurangzeb seized power in 1658.
Just inside the fort is the large open Diwan-i-Am (Hall
of Public Audiences), which was used by Shah Jahan for domestic government
business, and features a throne room where the emperor listened to
petitioners. Along the eastern edge of
the fort is the Musamman Burj and Khas Mahal, a white-marble octagonal tower
and palace where Shah Jahan was imprisoned for eight years until his death in
1666, and from where he could gaze out at the Taj Mahal, the tomb of his
wife. Also along the eastern side were the palaces of Shah Jahan’s two daughters. His favorite daughter’s residence was very
lavish, while the other daughter’s living area was very sparse.
After leaving the
fort and saying goodbye to our local guide, we started the long drive back to
the Delhi airport. It was supposed to be
a 5 ½ drive, but there is a new privately built toll highway that connects Agra
with Delhi. The drive back was only about
3 hours and it lacked the congestion we found on other roads. However, once we left this highway, we had to
take very crowded roads within the city to the airport. We arrived at the airport about 3 PM (6 hours
before our flight). You could only enter
into the departure terminal 5 hours in advance of your flight, so we waited in
a small waiting area that had been set-up.
Once in the departure terminal, we grabbed a chicken sandwich for our
lunch and waited another hour for the Eithad check-in counter to be opened.
Once we were
checked in, it was an easy trip through passport control and security and we
soon found ourselves in the airport lounge used by Air India. At 9 PM we departed Delhi for our flight to
Abu Dahbi. The flight was uneventful and
four hours later we were in the Eithad business lounge awaiting our flight to
Chicago.
For all
US-bound flights out of Abu Dabhi, you have to go through US Customs and
Immigrations. It only took about 20
minutes to do – at 3 AM we were the only US-bound flight. By clearing customs and immigration here in
Abu Dabhi, we avoided having to go through customs at Chicago. Since everyone had already cleared customs
and immigration, our flight was treated as a domestic arrival despite the fact
that we arrived at the International terminal in Chicago.
The
flight to Chicago was 15+ hours. After
our 4 AM departure, the flight attendants asked if we wanted dinner. We said that we would rather try and sleep
for a while and then eat. I am sure that
the flight attendants are used to serving dinner at all hours of this
flight. I slept for about 3 hours and
then had my dinner while watching the latest Star Trek movie. After the movie ended, I tried to get some
more sleep – I guess I managed about another 3 hours. By this time, most of the cabin was awake and
getting their dinners. Between the
clinking of the silverware and plates and the smell of the food, further sleep
was out of the question. Bill said he
managed to get about 4-5 hours of sleep.
About 2 hours out of Chicago, we were served our breakfast. Once we landed in Chicago, we took the train
to the American Airlines terminal where we were issued our boarding passes for
the Denver flight. At the gate the
flight was delayed by 30 minutes and both Bill and I were very, very
tired. It was going on 40 hours without
much sleep. I tried to sleep on the
flight to Denver, but did not have much luck.
Our
friends picked us up in Denver. We were
supposed to stop at Ted’s Montana Grill to celebrate Larry’s birthday, but both
Bill and I were much too tired. They
drove us home and we made plans to do the dinner on Thursday. I managed to stay awake until 5:30 PM, but
after that it was lights out until 2:30 AM.
The problem with international travel is that your body clock gets
turned inside out and it takes about a week to get back to your regular sleep
habits.
This
was by far the most tiring and strenuous trip we have taken. I great part of the problem was the excessive
heat and humidity (and further compounded by the smog in China). We definitely enjoyed the trip – we knocked
off about 6 things from our bucket list – the Forbidden City, Terra Cotta
Warriors, the Panda Preserve, Tibet, the tiger sighting, and the Taj
Mahal. For the most part we found the
people of China to be friendly and helpful (as much as you can be when neither
speaks the other’s language). The only
exception is the taxi drivers in Beijing – they do not like to stop and pick-up
westerners because of the language barrier.
The China tour was a bit taxing – the first8-10 days were very long –
about 10-12 hours; while the last part of the tour had too much free time and
not enough activities. They could have
easily taken one of the days from Hong Kong and added it to Beijing. The food was okay, but 21 days of rice three
times a day was a bit much. And most of
the dishes in China were essentially the same at every meal. By the time we got to Hong Kong, we were all
craving a good American hamburger! Thank
goodness the hotel in Hong Kong had a lot of British influence – their sports
bar had great fish and chips and hamburgers.
Indian food, as I’ve said, is very, very spicy, and basically consists
of vegetables and chicken. Even the
McDonalds only serve chicken sandwiches.
You gotta love those sacred cows – they have a great life in India. Both Bill and I were glad we made this trip,
but we have decided that we are done traveling in Southeast Asia and
India. Our next two trips will take us
to Europe on a river cruise down the Rhine and Mosel Rivers, and in 2028 we are
planning to visit down-under – Australia and New Zealand.
