Agra Fort and Taj Mahal.....Wow!

wonderwomanusa

At Fatepur Sikri, we walked away from approaching touts and just kept walking. We didn't really care for a tour of the place anyway, so made up our own -- one young fellow followed us, and we all ended up near the Elephant Gate, where some kids were herding small goats.

We founds someplace to sit and talk, the young tout joined us and we just had a nice afternoon conversation until we decided to wander back to our ricksha and go back to Agra.

brownboy66

sounds lovely. Hmmmm....maybe we got them on a particularly slow day (i.e - fewer tourists to share around....)

PeakXV

I'd like to go back to FS. A good part of it was closed for renovations when I was there. It was a slow monsoonish day when I visited and some kids must have mistook me for 'Yosemite Sam' as they kept pestering yours truly to perform some high-diving act. Later I discovered, thankfully, that it was them not me that was going to do the leaping - however at some point unbeknownst to myself -I had apparently authorized the afternoon main event - ..... as a result I was suddenly ushered to the front row of the diving depot by all the touts & hawkers & other associated rupee-pinchers as a sort of guest of honor cum good sport.

.... to bad they don't have reenactments of Akbar's human parchesi game with the scantily clad slave girls instead.

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We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started ...and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot

Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

the opoponax

Just to follow up, I took Brownboy's advice and went for Agra Fort. Amazing! I obviously can't say if it was the "right" choice, not being able to compare it with FS, but it was good enough for me and exactly the sort of thing I wanted to do.

I'm still a little sad that I didn't get to visit anything particularly Akbar-related in India, because even before Jodhaa Akbar he really fascinated me as a historical figure. But c'est la vie, I guess.

I think at some future point I want to come back to Agra and either join an official tour or do enough research (and invest enough money) to hire a really, really good guide. I've become leery of hiring guides in India, because so far they've all been universally terrible. But I really felt like I wanted a guide in Agra Fort - there was little or no signage, and what was there was not particularly illuminating. Even the little 20 rupee souvenir guidebook (which is usually about a thousand times better than the guides at a tenth of the price) was pretty weak.

Either way, thanks for the suggestion - forts, in the American sense of the word, usually bore me, so I never would have opted to go if not for this thread.

brownboy66

yes,yes....that's what we want to do too. There's a few other places around Agra that we didn't visit when there just after xmas - partly because we didn't want to pack everything into the one visit but leave something for when we go back. And yes, now we've become interested in the Moghuls emperors as well (we even talk about it as a family at the dinner table - how boring is that)!
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Aishah

Definitely not boring! Also in the Museum section of the Red Fort is some fascinating stuff re Mughal rulers and times.

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"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

MrsC_772

Agree with previous posters.

First day in India visited Humayun's tomb in Delhi, and realised I was going to become a jali-junkie.

Taj Mahal really does live up to the hype. My guide and I entered by the West Gate around 9 a.m. last Wednesday - no real queue, though quite a lot of people inside already. Nice guide Anu took some pictures with me in them (as I was travelling on my own).

I also liked the "Baby Taj", showing arguably a little more of what struck me as more traditional Islamic geometric patterns, as well as the more Mughal floral stuff. No touts and hawkers inside, and hardly any visitors. (No school parties, unlike Agra Fort where it seemed an entire school had descended on the place, and my guide could hardly make herself heard over their noise - they were more like rowdy British schoolkids than well-behaved Indian ones).

Agra Fort - jolly impressive, both in size (those imposing walls!) and opulence - especially when you think how it must have looked with carpets, candles, tapestries etc as well as what you can see today. I hadn't visited the Red Fort in Delhi as I'd heard Agra Fort was better.

Fatehpur Sikri touts were the most numerous and persistent anywhere on the Golden Triangle, both outside the mosque and within. (Did the prophet Mohammed have anything to say about moneylenders in the temple or equivalent?) My guide did warn me! I was innately suspicious of the young men in Sheikh Salim Chishti's tomb suggesting which way round I should proceed (while I just wanted to admire and photograph the jali screens), suspecting that they were hoping for payment for acting as unofficial "guides" to the bleeding obvious. Fortunately they weren't in the innermost sanctum, but I felt slightly uncomfortable being a tourist in there, given the genuine and rather moving intensity and concentration of those there to pray and tie threads to the screen as they made their wishes. Being there (as simply a tourist, and a non-Muslim) felt slightly intrusive.

Kingstonian

I decided to go for it - I didn't feel in the least intrusive or self-conscious (especially as I'd made a financial contribution, as did everyone else). I did the whole thing with the piece of cloth and the flowers, which were placed over the tomb, and the three bits of thread, which I tied carefully and thoughtfully to the jali (thanks for that word, Mrs C - I hadn't noticed before what they were called).

The idea is, I was told, that when your wish (or prayer) is granted, you have to go back to untie a thread (from the other side, I think). Anything that helps me get back to India, and to Fatehpur Sikri amongst many other destinations, still sounds good to me!

I felt the atmosphere in the inner sanctum was relaxed, if busy - although I did have time to stop and look around and enjoy the richly decorated interior.

I was taking the advice of our local guide at the time, but if I truly offended anyone by this, then I would sincerely apologise.

On the other hand, if my wish comes true, I will certainly be keeping faith, and planning my return visit to untie that thread and pay further respects!

anar

reading this thread makes me want to revisit (taj and fort) and visit for the fist time fatehpur sikri.

no one mentions the splendid albeit under-rated akbar's mausoleum in nearby sikandra (10km from agra) - a gem of a place (fortunately ignored by the masses).