Day 24 – Taj Mahal, Agra
Day 24 – Tuesday, 19th Nov 2013
It’s 7 am Tuesday morning and Khyati and I are woken up by children singing morning prayers in their school. Iora Guest house is right opposite a primary school and we listen to some devotional songs and news for the next half hour.
It’s 8:45 am and we leave for Bharatpur station. The roads in Bharatpur are awful to say the least. The ride was very bumpy and we reach the station by 9 pm. Our train is the same one we had traveled in yesterday – Shatabdi but today we travel from Bharatpur to Agra, a 1 hour journey.
Train route to Agra
At the station, we see the Palace on Wheels – we felt so lucky to be able to see this train, albeit from outside.
Palace on Wheels
Our train is on time and we reach Agra by 10:30 am. Agra Fort station is crowded and we see a lot of foreign tourists around. We take an Auto Rickshaw to our hotel. The plus point about our hotel was it’s location – just 5 minutes walking distance from Taj Mahal and the rooftop of our hotel had views of Taj Mahal, priceless.
It’s noon and we leave to see the most beautiful monument ever made – The magnificent Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal has three entrances – West, East and South and we enter the venue from The South Gate.
South Gate entrance
To our surprise, it was World Heritage Week from 19 Nov – 25 Nov and Taj Mahal has free entry today. The security is tight and we make our way into the complex. We can’t keep our eyes off Taj Mahal, it’s that beautiful looking from a distance or from near. Inside, the Taj Mahal, we visit the sarcophagi of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan.
Taj Mahal
Us @ Taj Mahal
Apart from the Taj Mahal, it also has a nice museum and two mosques flanking it on the left and right hand side. We visit them all and it’s 5:30 pm by the time we leave the complex. We find some South Indian fare at a local restaurant. On our way back, we stop near Agra golf course. It’s a full 18 hole golf course and I enquire about a game of golf. The Agra golf course is managed by staff of the Indian Army. We make plans to visit the golf course next morning and head back to the hotel.
We spend some time at the rooftop restaurant and chat with some foreign tourists. We call it a night around 11 pm.
Best,
Paras