The journey to Agra

It took most of the day to get to Agra. We stopped off at Fatapur Sikri, a deserted palace that was the capital of the Mughal Empire for a short time, during the reign of Akbar and is a world heritage site. Sam’s cousin who is a guide there, gave us a whistle stop tour of the Jama Masjid mosque, completed in 1571, and the 54m high Buland Darwza (Victory Gate), built to commemorate Akbar’s military victory in Gujarat. Interestingly, the Quaranic inscription inside the archway quotes Jesus saying, “The world is a bridge. Pass over it but build no house upon it. He who hopes for an hour may hope for eternity.”
We passed into the courtyard and saw the marble tomb of the Saint, Shaikh Salim Chishti. It is decorated with flower murals and the ceiling is a beautiful canopy, inlaid with Mother of Pearl. Apparently Akbar came to the saint to pray for a son and today, the marble jalis (lattice screens) are covered with pieces of thread, tied there by people who visit to pray to the saint for a child. Unfortunately there was no time to enter the palace complex as it would have taken a whole day to do it justice but the buildings are supposed to be very beautiful and a blend of Persian, Hindu and Islamic architecture encompassing palaces, mosques, gates, havellis, stables, servants quarters, mosques, towers and ruins. Maybe next time?!

We limped in to Agra with Gunjan stopping every few yards to ask directions or winding down the window to bellow at people on passing scooters at traffic lights (people are all very good and accommodating about this and there is nothing they love better than a good debate about the right way!) and eventually we found the way to the East Gate of the Taj Mahal. Our hotel, the Sheela, is literally 200m from the gate and ticket office and all the reviews I had read on sites such as traveladvisor.com, said that this was the easiest hotel to stay in as you literally fall out of bed at 5.45 and you are in the queue for the ticket office when it opens at 6am. This gives you a couple of hours to look round and get photos without too many crowds and then you can clear off for breakfast around 8.30 when it really fills up.

The Taj is in a pollution free zone so you can’t drive to the hotel either so we rang reception and the owner came out on his motorbike and escorted us to his other hotel, the Sheela Inn where we transferred to an electric auto rickshaw and drove the last ¼ mile to the Sheela.
Mary and I went in search of an ATM to get some cash and found one within about 20m of the Taj East Gate and then we had supper at the hotel and an early night. As the toast I had for breakfast was my first food in 36 hours, I didn’t want to push my luck as my stomach got back to normal so, for the first time since we landed in India, I opted for that terribly British cop-out, an omelette. And very nice it was too!
There must have been some sort of music festival on in Agra because for the last hour of the journey, we kept passing trucks with silver loudspeakers mounted on boards and Auto rickshaws, crammed full with horns, drums and other insuruments and any other available space taken up by people bizzarely dressed like the Trumpton Firebrigade!  As we turned the light off to go to sleep, I could swear I heard a band strike up in the distance.