The Taj Mahal and Agra Fort

Our very last day in India was spent like this: bus, bus, bus, bus, bus, Taj Mahal, (1/4)bus, Fort, bus, bus, bus, bus, bus. Now replace each time I said bus with an hour and that’s how much time was spent on a bus. Was it worth it? OH YEAH!

The Taj was kind of surreal. Standing there and taking in the fact that we were actually looking at an icon of India was pretty amazing. We picked up a tour guide on the way in and learned some facts from him. Fact one: tour guides in India are demanding (adding this info to the info of our tour in the Muslim fort in Hyderabad), their favourite phrases are “Come, come” or “Stop here.” Fact two: The pillars surrounding four sides of the Taj were built at slight angles so that if there is ever an earthquake the pillars will fall away from the building, not towards it. Fact three: The queen buried in the Taj was the king’s third and favourite wife- she gave him 14 children after his first two wives were barren- and she was a tiny lady based on the size of her tomb. She is buried underground and what we saw was a full-size replica.

Due to the fact that we wanted to see the Fort as well we did not linger too long at the Taj- a pity but I think in the end we were glad we went to see the fort as well.

The Red Fort or Agra Fort- pretty sure it is called both names- is indeed made of red stone. It is a HUGE palace and is really old. There is a view of the Taj from many of the windows. There’s some grass in a middle courtyard. Monkeys think they own the place now. The security guards don’t like it if you climb the ruins. Can you tell we didn’t opt for a tour guide on this site?

After 45 minutes of roaming the fort we were on the road again (we just couldn’t wait to be on the road again…). It was goodbye Agra and hello again Delhi. We rolled in around 8:30-ish (I think, may have been later) and went straight to a restaurant because we were hhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnggggggggggrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy. We chose a delightful little place called Pindi’s. What an extremely fun name. Food was good but most people were exhausted and just eating quietly. Sandy, Brandon, Taryne and Emily had slipped over the edge however and were so boisterous that the wait staff gave several sly looks, seeming to assess the sobriety of said characters.

We went back to the hotel and good news awaited us. Our flight out in the morning had been delayed, changing our leave time from 4:15 to 5:45. Huzzah! It also meant that our 6-hour layover in London shrank to about 4 hours. It felt like we were getting home faster.