Two Days in Northern India

Original plan:

- 14 hour train ride to Agra to see the Taj Mahal
- Spend 6 hours in Agra
- Hop on another train to Delhi
- Catch a connecting train to Chennai (45 hours)
- Arrive in Tamil Nadu in time for the Pongol celebration

Hectic schedule, but do-able.

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What actually happened:

- Train was 10 hours late to Agra, so we missed all of our other connections. The Taj is closed on Fridays (when we got there because of the delay), so we ended up staying for two days more than we had planned to catch a train on Sunday morning to Chennai. Frustrating, but we ended up getting to see far more, and we enjoyed the extra leisure time.

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This little change in plans allowed us time to explore a small city near Agra called Fatehpur Sikri. The Mughal emperor Akbar the Great built the city as his perfect capital - a place to rule his vast domain in luxury. Unfortunately for him, after the incredible palaces and infrastructure were completed, the new inhabitants immediately realized one great flaw -- no source of water. Fortunately for us, Akbar abandoned his city and left it completely intact for us to visit 500 years later.

Not really knowing what to expect when we arrived, we were blown away by the majesty of the Islamic architecture displayed by the grand forts and mosques of the city. Walking around the inside of the most enormous mosque complex I have ever seen, I felt like I was in Saudi Arabia. (We later found out that the main sanctuary was modelled after the mosque in Mecca... so not too far off..) We wandered around for a while, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and cooler northern weather, doing our best to avoid over-friendly tour guides and people who "just worked there but wanted to show us around.. for free!" by pretending to not understand English.. they didn't buy it..

The main palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there was an entrance fee: 50 cents for Indians, $7 for foreigners. We decided not to waste the money, and we walked around the back to see what else we could find for free. We stumbled upon a series of mosques, village buildings, attempted water collection systems, and palace ruins overlooking a vast network of rice paddies and traditional settlements that were just as fascinating as whatever lay inside the ticketed area. We climbed up inside an empty mosque where we could watch from a ledge as village children played cricket in the courtyard of an ancient ruin with a tall, spiked lookout tower. Bright green parrots played at the tops of minarets and flew past the red sandstone walls which glowed as the sun sank toward the horizon, making a stunning contrast of colors. We got back to town just in time to catch the last bus to Agra.

The next morning we slept through sunrise at the Taj Mahal and wandered around the old city where bakers hawk their goods, children play in mud and cow shit in the narrow streets, and monkeys jump from ledge to ledge overhead trying to steal biscuits from the bakers who beat them with grass brooms. We ate some humus and shakshukah for lunch at a restaurant that caters to the many Israeli tourists who think of India as a second home (something like 5% of the Israeli population is in India at any given time.) When the Taj Mahal's gates opened again after some kind of lunch break, we bought our tickets and waited in our gender-segregated line, which moved MUCH faster than the line for women. Only as we were going through security did it occur to us -- we were going to see the TAJ MAHAL.... a place that's probably on more I-need-to-see-that-before-I-die lists than any other building on Earth.

And it was just as incredible as I ever could have imagined it to be. The grandeur, perfect symmetry, delicate appearance, structural soundness, vibrant color, frustratingly intricate detail, and humbling size are awe inspiring, and in my opinion, unmatchable. If this place is on your I-need-to-see-that-before-I-die list... buy your ass a ticket to India and see it before you die.

Not too shabby.

Then we hopped on our 48 hour train to Chennai.