Agra and Home Again

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.