Another early start today; we are up at < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
5.30 am in order to get to the Taj Mahal for opening time at 6am. Fortunately the hotel is only 10 minutes walk from the Taj through a pleasant park. This is the best time of day to visit, before it gets too hot and is over-run by the tour groups that start to arrive around 9am. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>
This is what we came to Agra to see and it doesn’t disappoint. The Taj Mahal is every bit as beautiful as the hype and the pictures depict. Built on a raised platform so that it has only the sky as backdrop it looks so serene. Perfectly symmetrical with four minarets leaning slightly outwards, apparently, according to one theory, to protect the mausoleum in the event of an earthquake, and intricately decorated with pietra dura – it is the most stunningly gorgeous of buildings. And it looks almost as perfect as when it was built. What more can one say about one of the world’s most iconic buildings?
By the time we leave the grounds are starting to get crowded – it must be a nightmare later in the day. We are back at the hotel in time for breakfast and our two rickshaw drivers are waiting for us when we emerge around 10 am.
First stop is the Jamu Mosque with it’s horizontally striped sandstone and marble domes. Getting there involves negotiating the horrendously busy market area of old Agra. And that is an experience in itself! Entry is free, but everyone wants baksheesh – the shoe wallah, the man who provides the modesty sarong for Andy, the man who shows us the inside of the mosque, the man who tells us we can take photographs, as well as a boy who does nothing but be there! Although smaller, the mosque is similar in layout to the Jama mosque in Delhi. There are no socks on offer this time though. Instead a rather dirty and disintegrating runner soaked with water is laid across the courtyard in various directions to protect bare feet from the intense heat of the paving stones.
For lunch our rickshaw drivers take us to the Green Garden Restaurant, a quiet spot with a large lawned garden and a parachute for shade. A real oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of Agra as well as good, cheap food.
After lunch we willingly allow ourselves to be ferried around the local artisan shops, all of which give drivers commission and also pay them a percentage of any sale. Along the way there a herd of black oxen are being herded through the traffic and every so often we spot a monkey. We visit a jewellers, a leather shop, marble factory (interesting to see how pietra dura inlaying is created – such painstakingly detailed craftmanship), clothes shops and a carpet shop, where we have a demonstration of the carpet making process and where I fall in love with, and purchase, two rugs which will be shipped back to the UK to arrive just after we get back – I hope!