Agra and Fatehpur Sikiri, India (Post #69)
Michele here….we are currently in Pushkar, India at an Internet cafe but are behind on the blogging (so you’ll read about Pushkar later). Mike is working on the mapping feature we have on our blog site. (To see our country maps, you have to look at the bottom of the one inch bar that you see on the right hand side when you first log into our site.)
Since the last blog….We left Varanasi at night, heading for the train station. We would take an overnight train again. This time we were in a 3-tier sleeping car. This means that where we were sleeping, there are actually 3 “beds” on each side of the little area. So there were supposed to be six of us crammed together (it turned out there were 7 people because a mom and child shared a bed). We had been dreading this overnight train ride since our last one was such a disaster (see post #68). We initially had trouble finding which car we were in and we were really getting stressed out because we didn’t have much time to figure it out. Once again, the train station was a complete zoo-like atmosphere with people pushing and shoving and also trying to find which train they are on. We found our names on the pieces of paper they tape to the side of the trains and got on. We were pleasantly surprised to find that two other people in our little area where from Switzerland. What a relief! This made the train ride go so much faster and they went to sleep early and slept through the night. The only real interruption was at about 1:45am when “pillow man” turned on the light and physically touched everyone’s pillow to make sure we each only had one. Overall, the overnight train ride from Varanasi to Agra, India went much better than expected.
We were met by our driver, Negi, at the train station. We had arranged a driver to drive us, starting at the Agra train station (on December 10th), throughout India, and then to the Delhi airport on December 16th. Since we had only one day in Agra we quickly went to our hotel. The hotel room, where we stayed in Agra is our cheapest to date – $7.78. It wasn’t the best but it certainly wasn’t the worst and it had a bathroom and hot water (although not much hot water).
In Agra our main focus was the Taj Mahal of course, but first we went to see the Agra Fort and the Itimad-ud-Daulah. The Itimad-ud-Daulah is the marble tomb of a Persion man whose daughter married the emperor in the 1600s. (I guess if you are married to the emperor, you can built a big tomb made out of marble for your dad.)
Here’s a picture:
We also visited a “ghost town” outside of Agra called Fatehpur Sikiri. The story behind this city is very interesting and quite long but here’s the short version: In 1585, Emperor Akbar build this city. Akbar the great, as he was called, created his own religion that combined all the best aspects of Islam, Christianity, Hindu, and others. One of the buildings in this ghost town is actually a mosque (for Muslims) with a quote from Jesus written in Arabic (very strange). He believed in Peace for All and no one was discriminated for their race or religion – a very progressive idea for the time. When Akbar died so did his ideas of equality and peace for everyone. All of the people ended up leaving the city and it still stands there today. Here is a picture:
Finally, here is a picture of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built by an emperor for his wife. This is her tomb as she died during childbirth in 1631. Mike and I both agree this was one of the most impressive things we’ve seen on the trip. And it is definitely the most impressive man made structure we’ve seen (even better than the pyramids in Egypt!) I know this photo is shown so often but I couldn’t help but post my version.
Check back again soon…bye!
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Tags: Category #19: India
Michele Harmon
i’m so sorry you are having troubles in india…i hope you are enjoying it anyway. it’s a pretty magical place once you get used to being there as i’m sure you are realizing.
take care.