KJ's Excellent Adventure: Taj Mahal

Now that we are safely back in Bangalore, I can tell you how I spent my weekend. After we informed Gopal and Deepak about the unfortunate balcony episode on Friday morning, Ramesh whisked us away to the Bangloare airport where we caught a Kingfisher flight to Delhi. Kingfisher also makes Indian beer, which we have been enjoying lately. I am not sure what bothers me most, that an airline brews beer or that a brewery flies planes!

We arrived in Delhi several hours later, exhausted. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before and the plane offered no real rest. We both lied down for just a nap that turned into an all afternoon/evening snooze-a-thon. We are such exciting travelers!

At 7am we settled in for a 4 hour drive with a driver we had hired through the hotel. He warned us that the roads may not be that good on part of the journey, but hey, we've been Ooty! They can't be that bad. Fortunately the roads were pretty good for the whole trip.

We stopped at what I can only describe as a rest stop/tourist trap. There were restrooms, a coffee shop and a gift shop. We did have a cup a coffee and some cookies. Since I hadn't done much shopping for souvenirs yet, I persuaded Peggy to browse the gift shop with me. She warned me that the prices would't be that good and we probably shouldn't buy there. Before it was over, we both had purchased a skirt. I may never wear it, but at 312 rupees, ($7.50) it was a steal. Peggy's was not so cheap but much longer.

Back on the road ag

ain we saw countless things we did not see in Bangalore. Many modes of transportation were used to move goods between Agra and Delhi. We saw an elephant, horses, cows, camels, donkeys, tractors, cars, bikes and people. All of them shared the road with very little conflict. The driver even pulled over a bit so I could take this picture of the elephant.

Once we got to Agra, we picked up our the tour guide, AD, He jumped in the back seat and introduced himself. He explained that we could drive only so far before we had to get out of the car. They only allowed electric buses near the Taj Mahal because of the pollution. We were able to catch one that dropped us a bit down the road and we had to hike it the rest of the way. We paid our admission, got our bottle of water and our booties to put over our shoes and went through a security checkpoint. They were checking for video cameras and other electronics, but didn't find my MP3 player in my purse. Oops!

We entered a big open area with 4 large red sandstone gates. The one to our right was the gateway to the Taj Mahal. Up each side were verses from the Koran in marble inlay, increasing in size as you go up so that it looks like the letters on the top and bottom are the same size. There are 22 small domes on the top of the gateway, 11 on each side. Each dome represent a year in the building of the Taj Mahal.

As we proceeded through the gateway, the Taj Mahal came into view. It was beauti

ful! Between the gateway and the Taj, were gardens and a long reflecting pool. Everything in this place was very symmetrical. I could relate to that. They built a mosque on one side, so they built an identical building on the other that was used as a guest house. Instead of walking up the middle towards the Taj, we ventured to the right and walked under the shade of the overhanging trees. Shade was good because we found out later it was 108 degrees!

When we got to the end of the shade trees it was time to put our little booties over our feet so as not to damage the marble. The stairs we had to climb were solid marble slabs that had to be at least a foot deep. Peggy was a trooper and slowly but surely made her way up the stairs. Not a bad feat for someone with a knee that won't bend. We took a breather when we go to the top and admired the gem stone inlay in the marble walls. Each one was done by hand, as were the intricate marble carvings.

Once inside we were not allowed to use our cameras. It was a bit cooler though because of the way the building was designed. It actually has 2 domes, an inner and outer, to keep the building cool. Of course it was no match for the throng of sweaty bodies passing through, but you did feel a bit of a dip in temperature.

The heat was getting to Peggy so she opted to sit the rest of the tour out. I walked around the perimeter of the building with AD explaining every little detail. Once again, the symmetry was quite evident. And when you turned to face the gateway, the doors of both the Taj and the gateway were perfectly aligned. I was eating this up.

After a short breather we headed back to the car. We were very lucky to encounter a bus right near the entrance so we didn't have to take the walk like we did in getting there. Part of the tour package was lunch at the Taj Palace Hotel so that's where we headed. It was a buffet, and we ordered Kingfisher beer and water to go with it. Both hit the spot. They did have a nice ginger tart on the dessert table that was very tasty. When lunch was over, we told the driver we wanted to head back to Delhi, no shopping. The drivers get commission from places they stop along the way, so he was not particularly happy to hear we were done for the day.

The trip back brought with it an unfortunate encounter. There was a traffic jam on a bridge and by the time we got up to the bottleneck it became apparent that a camel, carrying quite a huge load of hay, had expired and was lying in the road, still hooked up to the cart. The farmer and others were gathered around, trying to determine their options. I am sure they were not close to home and they were not close to Delhi either. It was so sad for everyone involved, especially the camel.

Back at the hotel we stopped at the bar and had some refreshing libations, discussing all we had seen and done that day. We were waiting to hear from Chandan who was going to meet us for dinner. We got back much earlier than anticipated (no shopping) so opted to meet Chandan for lunch on Sunday instead. We had dinner at the Piazza Plaza at the hotel, which was an Italian restaurant. It was accompanied by a VERY NICE bottle of wine. Ask Peggy how nice the wine was!

Sunday dawned and it was my birthday! We had a day of pampering scheduled. Peggy told me that the girls back at the Sentinel wanted to send me flowers for my birthday and wanted Peggy to arrange it. We decided that a facial was easier to pack! Thank you Sophie, DeeDee and Karen for the lovely facial given to me by Pooja. She was very thorough. She worked on my face for about an hour. I feel so hydrated! We also got leg massages and pedicures. This was my gift from Peggy. Thank you Peggy! The leg massages were even more thorough than the facials. Talk about painful! The guy was ramming his fingers into my calf muscles. I felt good when he was done.