Just back at hotel at 4pm after an afternoon of site seeing. My plan to get up early to catch sun rise at the Taj Mahal was foiled by not being woken by my alarm clock. If I'm truthfule I was going to miss the sunrise anyway as I did not fancy a 5am start. I did however set my alarm clock for 7am with the intention of having the days site seeing out of the way between 11 and 12 so as to avoid the worst of the days heat. All of that planning went out the window by only waking up at 10:30 this morning! After grabbing a late breakfast I headed out into the hottest part of the day to see the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the Baby Taj (Itimad-ud-Daulah).
Despite the scorching hot midday heat the Taj does not disappoint from up close. Getting to see it up close has definitely made my trip to India and I'm very glad to have come all this way. I'm very much looking forward to sifting through my photos from today and hope to have them online very soon.
I walked around during the heat of the day, and the best way to desribe how it was, is that I felt like I was melting, the combination of melted sun block mixed with perspiration and the insect repellant I'm using doesn't half sting the eyes after sweating consistently! :) On any of the really warm days I'm drinking more water that I thought it was possible to consume in a 24 hour period. Despite all of that I am very glad to be here in India. Tomorrow I'm going to chill out and take it easy with my one main task of trying to figure out how best to get to Bharatpur. I can hire a car and driver if I don't opt for public transport of some sort.
My auto-rickshaw driver for the last two days has offered to sort me out with transport to Bharatpur with a stop off at Fatehpur Sikri on the way. Fatehpur Sikri is an abandoned city that contains more sites from the Mughal period and was briefly the Mughal capital in the late 1500s before being abandoned due to the lack of a reliable water supply. Despite no one living here, the site is still used for worship and also for festival celebrations, as well as being a tourist attraction. I need to give some thought to my transport options for Mondays' journey to Bharatpur.
After visiting the Taj Mahal, I went to Agra's Red Fort (where Sha Jahan was imprisoned by his son). The mixture of white marble structures (similar to the Taj and funnily enough added by Sha Jahan when he was in power) with the red sandstone which is used in the original structures results in some impressive buildings, although my appreciation of the place was impacted some what by the heat. Have to say I'm feeling more comfortable here in Agra when out and about from the hotel which is partly as a result of there being less traffic and less people. Although I'd like to think that my finely honed bargaining skills are paying a part in that as well! :)
While at the Taj I got chatting to a bunch of American college students from California who were travelling as a group. I took a group photo for them and they very kindly reciprocated. There were 10 or 12 of them and they had opted to hire a car/van and drive around Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Having seen the state of the roads and the way people drive here I don't envy whoever the driver(s) are in their group!
After my visit to the Red Fort I paid a quick stop at the Baby Taj which although it is much smaller than the 'real' Taj was still worth a visit. After the intense heat and copious amounts of site seeing I'm relaxing with a nice cold Kingfisher beer as I'm writing this. An American guest in the hotel has very kindly let me use her login to the hotel's computer network to type this blog entry and to check my email. Saves me heading out later. After being quite drained by the heat today I"m looking forward to taking it easy tomorrow to re-charge the batteries before I move on to the 3rd leg of my visit to India.
One final thought for the day, you really have to ask yourself to what extent the British are responsible for the widespread poverty here during there time ruling this country. I'm sure they plundered some of the wealth of the country along with natural resources (as I"m sure did other conquerors). Certainly during the reign of the Mughal empire there was obvious wealth here and you would wonder to what extent the country would be better today if history had unfolded differently. However, no doubt if the Brits hadn't invaded one of the other colonial powers would have. Anyway, that's enough of that I'm going to enjoy the rest of my beer!
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