Day 21: Agra, India

Chinese Version / 中文版本

Because today is the big day to visit Taj Mahal, we had to wake up at 5 in the morning. The driver said there would not be many people and we could watch sunrise, that was why we did not object. 

Before leaving for Taj Mahal, I had waited outside of our room and suddenly saw something moving swiftly to the top from the bottom of the staircases. While looking more carefully, it was a rat! OMG, it was very scary to stay in hotel with decent room but with countless geckos crawling on the wall and randomly running rats!!! Luckily we just stayed here for one night!

At around 6 in the morning, we arrived at the entrance of Taj Mahal. There were already few groups of people buying the tickets. If there were not many people in the morning already, I could not believe how crowded it would be in the afternoon! Besides the ticket itself, the fee also included a bottle of water and a pair of shoe covers, so that we wouldn't be thirsty while walking around and we wouldn't make the floor dirty inside the mausoleum. It's actually very thoughtful. 

Taj Mahal - Mausoleum

Taj Mahal was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, and the main building material was white marble. In fact, my knowledge of Indian history was very poor, this was also why I would only go to those places where I had seen in the movie in this journey. Besides the famous movie "Slumdog Millionaire" was filmed in Taj Mahal, another impressive movie which I watched regarding Taj Mahal was "Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory", in which there was a scene of a chocolate made Taj Mahal. It looked extremely magnificent even with chocolate!

Taj Mahal - Mausoleum

The staff of Taj Mahal

We followed the crowds to enter the mausoleum, but before that, we had to wear the shoe covers first. Though the floor was made by marble, it wasn't as slippery as the floors of Parthenon in Athens. Is it because the huge amounts of tourists may damage the marbles? I have no idea, but I do believe that too many tourists will absolutely bring certain levels of harm to the architecture. Perhaps the government can learn from what Machu Picchu is doing right now, which they limit the amount of people to visit each day. Otherwise, it will be more difficult to provide a remedy for the architecture in the future.

Shoe covers

The floor of Taj Mahal

The carvings on the wall outside of Taj Mahal

River Yamuna

View from Masjid

The east side of Taj Mahal

Masjid

Three hour later, we were done touring Taj Mahal and was ready to leave the hotel after packing. At around 12 at noon, we arrived at another famous sightseeing place - Agra Fort. The ticket of Taj Mahal also includes the entrance fee of this fort, so we did not need to pay for it. Nevertheless, the sun was super evil and it shone right up on our head. It was too hot that we were not able to walk anymore. Therefore, we just walked casually for a loop and then couldn't wait to jump back in our car. Then the driver continue to bring us to Akbar's Mausoleum, but we gave it up as the weather was too unbearably hot....

Diwan-i-Am

Squirrel in Agra Fort

Columns of Diwan-i-Am

Agra Fort

Agra Fort

The other side of Agra Fort

Overlooking Taj Mahal from Agra Fort

Marbles interior

Agra Fort

Musamman Burj

The other side of Agra Fort

Afterwards, the driver drove us to Chand Baori, which is not on the usual tourist route. But I insisted to come here because of the movie 'The Fall'. I was astonished by the stepwells when I watched the movie, as it looked like a vertical maze. However, tourist was not allowed to go inside in the reality. We could only look from the top. (Later got to watch The Dark Knight Rises and it was also filmed in Chand Baori, another proof that it's an amazing place~)

Chand Baori

Chand Baori

Me, was being attacked by the evil sun

Stepwells like mazes

An unknown place near Chand Baori

Street scene

2 or 3 hours later we arrived at another famous city of India - Jaipur. We had planned to stay in Hotel Pearl Palace, but it was full and we needed to look around for another one nearby. Actually there was one with air-con rooms in the opposite, but it cost 1200 INR for a room. Therefore we asked the driver to take us to the one he recommended. I guessed he was already very angry with us by always asking but not taking, so he negotiated with us before taking us there, that we could not go any other one again later. We agreed and then went check the one he recommended. Unfortunately, no more air-con room was available and there was no way he could reject to take us to another one. For the next one he recommended, there was a gigantic bee hive stuck on the wall in the corridor. In the end, we all went back to the one opposite to Hotel Pearl Palace, despite the price was slightly out of our price range.

At night, we took the Tuk Tuk to have dinner at KFC, and then the Tuk Tuk driver forced to take us to a textile store no matter how many times we rejected. Eventually, we just walked around and then left the store empty-handed! Afterwards, we bought a scoop of Baskin Robins ' ice cream to end the night~

A very good movie "The Fall":