The Taj Mahal

To see the Taj Mahal in a day trip from Delhi, you need to get up at the crack of dawn and drive 4 hours to Agra. Not too bad as we got a car and a driver to take us there. As with all car trips, it was pretty hair-raising. Bas and I took it in turns to sleep. Each time we woke up we’d glance over at the other who would recount the number of near misses, crazy over taking, over turned trucks and cows in the road.
You see the oddest things here, so many of them that you start to see them as ‘normal’. On the way I saw a naked man walking down the side of the road on his mobile, followed by a gaggle of men. No idea what that was all about.

The Taj was stunning. I’d been when I was 16, about the same time of year, so similar experience. HOT, HOT, HOT, but so beautiful. We had a guide walk us round and tell us all about how it was built, when it was built, how many Persian artisans (20,000) were drafted in to build it etc.

I got stopped and asked if I would take a picture of a family. I agreed, ‘of course, not a problem’ and reached to take their camera to take the picture. ‘No, no, no.’ Lots of hand waving. Very confused. I’d got it all wrong. They wanted ME in the photo with the family. Babies thrust into my arms, photos, photos more photos. Once one family had had a picture with the blonde lady, they ALL want a photo with the blonde lady. We were being stopped every 5 minutes.

To preserve the Taj Mahal, they have shut down all factories in the area and no cars are allowed within 500m of the Taj, only electric cars. As a result, a lot of Agra’s industry has shut down. To compensate the local government have waived all taxes on handicrafts. You know what this means.....a trip to a handicraft shop. No tax! Cheap! Buy! We didn’t.

On the way back we stopped at another of Shah Jahan’s impressive buildings. Another beautiful building. As we walked back, we got stopped again by small children shoving their right hand towards me to shake my hand. “Hello, what’s your name?”

My favourite was this little boy on the far right who after having had the photo taken and having shook my hand, beamed at me and said “Welcome to India!”