BEAUTY OF THE TAJ MAHAL
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The baby Taj before we went to see the big one[/caption]
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Trish and I and a smoggy Taj Mahal[/caption]
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A shot of the madness in a typical Indian city[/caption]
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Part of the Red Fort of Agra[/caption]
From the smog of Delhi we set out the next morning to the city of Agra which of course is famous for its red sandstone fort and more famous for the Taj Mahal .
i haven’t mentioned that we are moving through India on a luxurious bus with TRISH’s sister Lesley and brother Nick and of course the spouses, our tour director Virendra (who could have been Omar Sharif ) to say nothing of the driver, can’t remember his name just now, who could have been a magician in a previous life, how we have managed to escape any accidents so far is a miracle, these are by far the most least cautious drivers I have ever seen in the world !!
Enough of that , Agra is or was the capital of the Mughal Emperors, my knowledge of India history stopped at the British empire, the Mughal dynasty that existed in the 16 century is another history lesson that is too much to go into here so google it.
Our first stop was at the Agra Fort , a red sandstone Fort surrounding royal pavilions and palaces inside, quite a site to behold, and then we went to a Mughal queens tomb that was like half the size of the Taj. A great day of site seeing. We then continued to our next hotel. ITC MUGHAL AGRA, this was another first class hotel, and the food was to die for , nobody has had the sick belly yet!! The next morning at 6 30 am we set off for the Taj Mahal (at this time we still lined up for 45 minutes) the idea being to see the sunrise rays brighten up this Magnificent Tomb made of white marble by the Mughal emperor for his darling wife . The sad part of this was with the smog that covers this country the lack of sun rays had no effect on this great spectacle. This did not dampen the experience, even though it was not on my original bucket list.
After the Taj we then took off for another city called FATEHPUR SIKRI this was not so far and full of architectural wonders from the 16 century, one wonders how they did it all without computers and calculators.
from FATE….. we then went to a train station and caught the train for a 3 hour journey, the good news was we were inside , not on top!! (this they said was for the experience) to our next destination which was RANTHAMBHORE, were we would stay two nights for the visit to the National Park and maybe see a Tiger or two
later
M&T
