Agra: Home of the Taj

Welcome to Agra!  Another bustling city in India.  Here you will find people, people, and more people.    And oh, yeah, the Taj Mahal!

When we first drove into Agra, we drove through a very busy market street in the early evening when people were shopping for dinner.  Oh my goodness!  There was sooooo much to look at in every direction.  So many things going on at once.  I seriously wish that I would have taken Josh's GoPro camera and had it mounted to the top of the car.  That would have been so cool!  Then I could relive that awesome scene again and again.

Here's a picture Matt snapped through the car window.  We were stopped by this jeep PACKED with people which was not unusual at all in India.  What I love is that they are happy, smiling people just going about their business.

We stayed at a Radisson Hotel which was full of European tourists.  It was a nice room with a nice toilet that you can put toilet paper in.  You have to realize that that was a big deal for us in India.  Enough said.

Matt spent five minutes with the hotel's palm reader.  It was a bit freaky to hear what he said.  He was right on about a bunch of stuff.  He certainly isn't putting his faith and trust in this guy, but it was pretty darn interesting.  I now wish I had had my palm read.  I wonder what he would have said about me.

Agra was a good experience, but it was the beginning of a week of stomach issues that ultimately had to be knocked out with a large dose of antibiotics.  So the last couple days of our trip were tainted with unpleasantness.

But onto the beauty of Agra's jewel... the Taj Mahal.  The Crown Palace.  It was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife who died while giving birth to their 14th child.  They are both buried here.  After 20 years and 20,000 workers, it was completed in 1643.  The symmetry, proportions, and details in the workmanship is incredible especially when one remembers just how long ago it was built.

I was told to sit like a princess since this is where Princess Diana sat

Check out the reflection in my sunglasses.

These were the horse stables.  So cool looking.

The Taj has many inlaid jewels in its gleaming white marble.  Here's a very small example.

After seeing the Taj Mahal's inlaid work, we were taken to a place where we could learn about how it was and is still done today.  It's a dying art that this family participates in.  They make furniture and other pieces with inlaid work and ship these orders all over the world.  It's a ton of work that takes months to complete.  I can only imagine the cost.  These two pics show a man sharpening something by hand...can't remember what he was doing.  And the next pic shows a work in progress.

Next stop in Agra (after lunch of butter chicken and naan), we went down the river (the Yamuna River) to where Agra Fort is located.  This was the residence of the royal families in Agra since the 1500s so it predates the Taj.  It's made of sandstone.  I'm sure it was amazing back then.  It was fun to explore.

Here is poor Shah Jahan's view from his palace room where his mean son, who took over, imprisoned him for 8 years.  Jahan was the king who built the Taj, and he could only admire it from down river until the day he died.    BTW...the Yamuna River used to be much fuller, actually coming up very close to the palace.

Last on our list of sites was the "Baby Taj".  It is thought that the Taj's design may of been patterned after this marble tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah since it was built before the Taj.  This building marks the transition from the red sandstone architecture to the refined marble.  It is a much smaller structure and so we weren't quite as impressed with it and just did a quick walk-around.  While there, we stood and watched a group of kids playing naked in the Yamuna River.  Right along side them were big, black water buffalo, the source of milk for many indians.  Not a very clean place to play.

Good-bye Agra!  Onto the big daddy, Delhi!

The Pink City... Jaipur

After leaving Rising Star in southern India, we flew up to northern India to the city of Jaipur.  We had arranged to tour with a local of Delhi named Benson who has a travel agency called Abish Travels.  He met us at the Jaipur airport.  He had arranged for our driver named Surender Singh, our tour guides at each of the three cities (BK, Nadeem, and Ankit), and our lodging for four nights.  He took good care of us as he took us around the "Golden Triangle" of India.  Jaipur, Agra, and Delhi form a triangle on the map and are parts of India that one must see.  I highly recommend Abish Travels if you want to travel this area.

Jaipur, we were told, was the first planned city in India.  It's known for its textiles and is the gemstone capitol of India.  It is often called the "Pink City" because many of its prominent buildings are painted in a pink color... more of a sandstone color.  When we were there, the famous Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds) was being repainted "pink".  We drove past it on the way to our hotel.  Our tour guide, BK, said we'd go back to it the next morning, but I guess he forgot.  Here is a little video clip that shows it briefly.  Check out the wooden scaffolding. You don't see that around here!

Here's our hotel that night.  It used to be the prime minister's palace and the room we stayed in was the room that the maharaja would stay in when meeting with the prime minister.  It dates back to the 1700s and is called the Naila Bagh Palace.  There was a peacock walking around on the premises.  We only saw him once and didn't have our camera out to snap a photo.

Before going to our hotel, BK took us to see Jantar Mantar, an amazing observatory built by Sawai Jai Singh II in 1728.  He was one smart maharaja!  There are 16 instruments there, some of which still are used today.  One of the structures he built is a sundial, Laghu Smrat Yantra, constructed on latitude 27 degrees north which he figured out is Jaipur's latitude.  It calculates Jaipur's local time up to an accuracy of 20 seconds.  Another cool structure is the Jai Prakash Yantra, two sunken hemispheres that map out the heavens. It is believed to have been built to verify the accuracy of all the other instruments in the observatory.

Next, the very knowledgable Jaipur resident tour guide, BK, showed us around the City Palace.  It has been the home of Jaipur's rulers since the first half of the 18th century.  The architecture is beautiful.

We saw many of its treasures like jeweled daggers and swords, silk rugs, and royal clothing woven in gold and silver.  Such wealth these people had!  My favorite part was the Pritam Chowk, Court of the Beloved, which has four beautifully painted doorways that represent the seasons.  The paint is made out of dust of gemstones painted on when the plaster was wet.  That is why over the 300 years, it hasn't faded and is absolutely stunning.

Click on this to see the detail.  This one's my fav.

The next morning we headed up to the most impressive Amber Fort, which means "Sky Palace".  Jai Singh I built it in the early 1600s.

To get up to it, we rode on an elephant on the cobbled pathway to the huge inner courtyard.  At the beginning of our ride, you can hear men trying to sell their goods to the tourists.  I was surprised to hear one of them yelling out in spanish how many dolares something was.  I have to tell you that we had elephant snot blow on us several times.  Mostly on our white legs, but once it hit my lip.  I guess that's all part of the experience:)  Take a look.  And don't laugh at my white legs and Matt's goofy hat.  Yeah, we are tourists.

Just as it is at the City Palace, the color on the walls here at Amber Fort was done with the paint made from the dust of gemstones.  One area called the Sheesh Mahal has tiny mirrors embedded in the walls and ceilings.  They used to light candles or torches in there at night and it would sparkle like a starlit sky.  A-Maz-ing!  I liked to imagine what it was like to be a princess living here in this palace so long ago.  They had such wealth and luxury surrounding them.  There is a swimming pool, a steam room and jacuzzi, indoor plumbing and water system brought up by pulleys in the man made lake below.

Paint from real gemstones

Indian pigeon in flight:)

BK showed us the hidden images in this marble wall carving

See the tiny mirrors on the ceiling and walls?

Honeycomb screens carved out of one piece of marble!

After leaving Amber Fort, we passed by the Floating Palace (as seen in the recent movie "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel").  So cool.  We were entertained there by a cute little boy who did some magic tricks for us.  I gave him some rupees and told BK to tell him to do well in school.  BK knows this kid and that he does go to school and that is why he didn't shew him away when he approached us.