At the seat of the Mughal Empire
Since I haven’t blogged all week, I decided to try to go in reverse order. Last night was some experience —a 10 hr ride on a sleeper train from Agra back to Bhopal. I can only describe it as something out of a movie — dark and eerie, heavy and humid air, no station announcements, internet cutting in and out — we had no idea where we were most of the time. The train kept stopping in the middle of nowhere, for no apparent reason, except maybe as Neto put it — ‘for those freaking cows.’ This put us 2.5 hours behind schedule.
But it felt like the real India.
We each had a stark bunk bed, and I volunteered to take the top. It was difficult to climb up, and the space at the top was tiny. During the first half, train workers we running up and down the aisles selling chai, curry, and masala dosas. Then it went quiet, as passengers in their full saris settled down to sleep.
It was certainly a bonding experience, as we huddled up covered in the train sheets, chatting through the night, till we finally pulled into Bhopal at 3 am. The train stopped 2 miles out of the station, and we filed in the corridor. We thought it was the stop, but it was pitch black outside and the doors wouldn’t open. At that point we were certain we were doomed to ride the train for eternity.

That day started early — we woke up at 5 am in Agra to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise, after 3 hours of sleep (in fluffy beds though this time). I’d been to the Taj Mahal before, but it was just as magnificent the second time (and I’ll be happy to go again in the future). The white marble is brilliant, and the building is just as striking up close as it is from afar. The facade is filled with detailed sculpted marble embellishments, and beautiful flowers made of semi-precious gemstones inlaid into the marble. The 22 years it took to build seems short for that amount of splendure.







Next we headed to breakfast, where aside from my now adopted breakfast of idli, papaya, pineapple, and melon, I enjoyed a mango yogurt, and loaded up on cappuccinos. Then we were off to visit the Agra fort, the palace of Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, and the 3 Mughal emperors before him — Babur, Humayun, and Akbar. It’s huge and feels like Aladdin’s lair, even though only 25% of the complex is open to the public.









After last night’s adventure, we were pretty out of it today. We did some reading by the pool, lunching at the cafe, and made an afternoon trip to the mall. The mall visit was actually quite successful — only 4 of us went, and we picked up restocks of snacks, a well cut Indian shirt for one of the guys, and found a great english books store where I picked up yet another book.


I will try to post about last week and what we’ve been up to with Eklayva.
For now, Namaste!