Days 288-293: Delhi & Agra
Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri
Garbage and Grandeur. The juxtaposition of filth and fantastic monuments makes Delhi and Agra remarkable places to visit. Not our most fascinating entry, but the monuments can speak for themselves.
Delhi welcomed us with open arms and legs and elbows as we dove into a brutal mosh pit to escape the train station. Right outside of the New Delhi train station is the tourist ghetto of Paharganj. The main street is wall-to-wall chaos and we were glad to have been toughened up in Nepal. Our secret weapon against the throngs of touts and rickshaw drivers: The Stoney Ignore.
Rickshaws, cars, touts, motorcycles, bikes, carts, cows, garbage, and a guy carrying a TV. A typical Delhi street.
Had Christmas in Delhi, and the tourist-oriented places went out of their way to make us feel right at home. This restaurant was covering all the bases with Buddhist prayer flags, a big Hindi Ganesh wall hanging, and a scrawny Christmas tree (think of the Charlie Brown Christmas special) covered in lights.
Like most places in Asia, India is pretty dirty. There’s a lot of garbage on the ground and your first response may be revulsion. The reason for all the trash is that there are no garbage cans; everyone just throws their trash in the gutter. However, every night/morning sanitation workers sweep all the trash together and either burn it or cart it away. That being said, it’s very tough for California-grown folks to just toss things on the ground (an act we’d be pummeled for in CA). Kelly can’t bring herself to do it and has to hand stuff to Marcus for him to toss on the ground.
A few places – like big tourist sites such as the Red Fort in Delhi – actually do have garbage cans and levy a pretty stiff fine (about $1) for littering.
Inside the Red Fort there are a few very nice white marble and red sandstone buildings. One of them had particularly nice marble inlaid with stones to make flowers and other organic motifs.
The Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque) in Delhi was a neat place to wander and they even let tourists climb one of the minarets to view the sprawl of greater Delhi.
Delhi traffic is nuts. Good thing there are a million rickshaw drivers ready to whisk you away.
Took an early train down to Agra and got a hotel with a rooftop restaurant with a view of the Taj Mahal. Awesome. We planned an evening assault on the Taj to get the best light, and decided to do the rest of Agra’s sights first.
The Agra Fort is made of red sandstone and has a nice view across the river from which Shah Jahan could gaze upon his wife’s (and eventually his) tomb: the Taj Mahal. The entrance gate to the Agra Fort.
We visited the Itimad-ud-Daulah, commonly called the “Baby Taj”. An incredibly detailed white marble building. All the marble was either in intricately carved lattice screens or had semi-precious stones inlaid in geometric designs. Much of the techniques used to build the Baby Taj were incorporated into the Taj Mahal. It was a bit of a hike to get out to the Baby Taj but well worth putting up with the pernicious beggars and railway bridge river crossing.
Itimad-ud-Daulah a.k.a. Baby Taj. We have been really fortunate with the lack of scaffolding on this trip, but our luck had to run out sometime.
Kelly at a window in the Baby Taj. Marcus wants to tile our next bathroom like this.
The Taj Mahal, the greatest building ever made for love. An architectural masterpiece. One of the wonders of this trip that lived up to expectations.
The enormous monument to love. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. 😉
There was a long, but quick moving, line to get inside to see the tombs. Great people watching. The number of Indians was astounding, but given that a local pays 20Rp (less than 50 cents) and a foreigner 750Rp ($17), it’s not too surprising.
In addition to the inlaid marble and lattice marble screens the Taj had carved flower reliefs.
Quite to our surprise, this was the first time (in India) that locals asked us to pose with them for their photos. We toyed with the idea of asking for backsheesh to recoup some of the expense due the price disparity for entrance. While the sunset was a total dud at the Taj Mahal, nothing could have possibly degraded from the mystique of this awesome building.
We spent a day visiting Fatehpur Sikri with a huge palace known as Akbar’s Folly because there was no water available to support it. It was deserted as soon as he died, and thus well preserved.
Akbar had this “Star Wars”-esque two-storey room built for debating four scholars at one time. Guess who was in the center (and probably won the debate).
Next to Akbar’s palace was this minaret that Marcus likes to refer to as the French tickler minaret.
The Fatehpur Sikri Jama Masjid (every town has a Friday mosque) complex was covered in yellow splotches. Marcus got hit on the nose and we looked up to see what caused it, but saw nothing. Later Kelly got hit on the arm and clothing. We finally figured out we were getting shat on by swarms of bees that had set up residence. Glad we brought hats!
The enormous gate to the Jama Masjid complex. Note the dark patches of bee hives inside the archways.
There were tombs in the Masjid complex and Marcus fought his way through the rugby scrum to get inside. He could see out through what he considered the most amazing lattice marble screens.
We wrapped up the evening by drinking a Kingfisher beer while watching goregous blue kingfisher birds and green parakeets flying about.
Tags: India
Kelly & Marcus
January 15th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
The Taj Mahal is one place I would love to see – awesome. So glad the weather was good for you!
Swarms of bee; yellow splotches – now that’s a new one…. How big were those bees anyway?
Hugs – Mom xoxox
January 16th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Marcus:
Which line was longer, the one to get into the Taj Mahal, or the one to get prime positioning at the end of the reflecting pool for a picture of it?
JR
January 18th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Anyone refering to a religious edifice as “the French tickler minaret” deserves to be shat upon.
January 18th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
That’s why they called him Admiral Akbar.
BJP
January 18th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Good one Dan…
Amen
January 20th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Mom/Dan – Now hold on a minute here. 1) It disturbs me that at least two of our parents are familiar with a french tickler. And 2) the minaret is not a religous site. Supposedly, it was built as a grave marker over Akbar’s favorite elephant, and he used it to shoot deer that were herded towards it for amusement.
Jon – it took a few more thrown elbows to get the reflection pics. The other line had a bunch of dudes with big sticks to keep things orderly.
Byron – Akbar’s parents were feeling very modest when they named him.