This post will be about our trip from Delhi (after our flight from Varanasi) to Agra, by chauffeured car, to the greatest building in India (and Asia? the World?). Be ready to be dazzled as this post will cover quite possibly my favorite photo from all of my travels.
We arrived and was greeted by Kuldeep, a tall Sikh driver arranged by Saurabh's family, who took us to his gloriously Air Conditioned car (refer back to Udaipur trip) and drove us to Agra, about 200 km away. Our driver (and me in turban):
We arrived close to midnight at our hotel - which I got through points at The Mughal, a 5-star Luxury Collection Starwood hotel. To maximize our trip, we decided to wake up at 500 am to see the Taj at sunrise and made the necessary arrangements with our driver Kuldeep.
Of course, Kuldeep did not speak any English...and the Five Star hotel proved not to have 5-star translating skills in relaying my instructions to him.
Any way, with a lot of hand gesturing, me being a ticked off and telling our driver to hustle out of bed at 6am, we ended up getting to the Taj Mahal and seeing it relatively alone. (more on our driver to come). And the Taj was Awesome. Truly an unbelievable building. Built of translucent marble, it practically glows in the sun or moon light. The buildings decorations are not painted on, but rather in-laid precious and semi-precious stone - onyx, lapis lazuli, iranian jade, cornelian - all translucent such that if you shine a light on these stones, they do glow. Unfortunately, the pictures hardly do it justice.
See:
For some reason, all the guide books suggest that we spend the entire day at the Taj - but for the life of me I cannot figure for what possible reason. The building is a tomb, and there isn't much else - as great as it is. So we went back to the hotel and slept.
Agra the town - not so great. Probably the most aggressively touristed place in Asia - with the accompanying hassles. At one point, this "guide" got into our car, telling the driver (who couldn't speak or understand any English) that we had hired him in Hindi and then telling us in English that he was our drivers friend. About 5 minutes later I kicked him out. Later he came and tried to demand money from our driver. Kuldeep proved to be our hero and told him to get lost.
Then comes my most unbelievable, favorite picture ever. In the late afternoon, we decided we'd check out the Taj from behind (the same view since the Taj is perfectly symmetrical). This is me in a kurta, in front of the holy River Yamura, next to the Taj Mahal - the greatest symbol of love in the world . . . . playing cricket!!
Seriously- how cool is this!!!
Maybe its just me...but I loved it.
Next we go to the wedding.
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