Tuesday 20 March 2012

Agra, India


Me and Ahn Jong grabbed the 10:10am train from Delhi to Agra. Avoiding AC class and travelling sleeper class with the locals is much more fun, but as it turns out we're placed in a booth with 2 other westerners. I wonder if this is done purposely or completely random? There was an Italian girl called Greta who'd just arrived into India and was experiencing her first "Delhi belly" and a Brazillian man called Alex, who loved to write. We spent the rest of the journey doing the now-standard traveller story swaps and decided to find a hostel together when we arrived in Agra.

The trip to Agra was literally just to see the Taj Mahal. So when we arrived and found a good hostel we dashed out to catch the sunset. Agra itself is dry, warm and smelly! It's a quick 10 minute jostle with trinket sellers from the hostel to the south gate. Walking through the gate with the Taj opening in front of you is a surreal experience. I'm not sure if i've ever had a shiver down the spine on seeing architecture before, it is truly, truly magnificent, eye-poppingly beautiful and absolutely enormous! (inside is a bit of an anti-climax). There wasn't as many people as i'd expected, you could just about get a space on the famous picture taking spot! We watched the sunset from 305 different angles then bailed when a billion mosquitos decended at dusk. I would love to see it at sunrise but we booked a 5am train to Jaipur as part of this quick-stop.


We all grabbed some dinner in a social little cafe called Jonies then went to bed. In my dream that night I was at the Taj Mahal went around the back only to find that it was a cardboard cutout, like a film set. As soon as they saw me police were blowing their whistles and running after me.

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