9th Febuary 2005 - Jaipur to Agra 10 hours

When I stepped out of the rickshaw that took us to our hotel late at night on arrival I stepped on a dead rat in the street. Welcome to Agra! We got up the following day before sunrise and walked 10 minutes down the road to India’s most famous building, the Taj Mahal. When we walked through the entrance gateway and the Taj came into view it had such an impact, I don’t think a piece of architecture has ever had such a powerful effect on me. As the sun was coming up the reflections in the watercourses in front of the Taj became clearer. The Taj and its surrounding ornamental gardens, white minarets, the red sandstone mosque and another identical building opposite were all designed to be symmetrical. This adds to the initial impact. As you get closer to the white marble structure the height of it is striking and you start to see where the semi precious stones have been set into the carved marble in flower patterns.
Agra itself is quite a depressing place to be. It’s just constant hassle from rickshaw drivers and sellers who just won’t take no for an answer. I can see why people visit Agra as a day trip just to see the Taj.
I thought being in India for over 2 months would make me think that India wasn’t so crazy but it seems to get madder, more unpredictable and surreal the longer I’m here or maybe that’s what Agra makes you think. Even though we had booked our ticket to Varanasi from Agra in advance we were still on the waiting list. We went to a tour agent to get advise on what to do as the train was leaving in a few hours. Their conclusion was to give them Rs200 (2.50) for one of them to go to the station and have a word to make our ticket confirmed so this is what we did. In India anything is possible.
The train was full of armed guards as I think there has been a lot of thefts and people without booked seats. I discovered this when I woke up and found sleeping bodies on the floor.