The great Taj Mahal

After a long search in the Varanasi train station we found our night train to Agra, the city of the great Taj Mahal. One of the wonders of the world. I didn't have alot of expectations and tried to wait to be disappointed, rather than expecting the glorious sight it actually was. We found a driver who took us to the hostel, which was really empty. Most people only stayed for a night, mostly going to bed early to get up early in the morning and then head onwards to the next stop. We didn't. It was unbelievably hot while we were staying there. And so dry. So... hot...

We had a relaxed afternoon and walked around, while Christina searched for nice things to shop. We checked the price to the Taj Mahal and were pleasantly suprised, that the price was "only" 1000 Rupees (about 13€) - people had told me it cost more, or they had paid more. But in the end we hired a guide and so it was after all more expensive.
So after starting in a too hot night we moved to the common room which had alot of beds aswell and a strong fan, where we were able to sleep. Better than in our room at least. That fan wasn't powerful at all and so the room was just too hot to enjoy.
In the late morning we headed out, had nice breakfast and headed for the Taj. We bought tickets, got a guide and were happy, that the price included a small water bottle, a shuttle express to the Taj and some other things. Such a good deal - thanks ASI!

Streets infront of the Taj Mahal, all white buildings and of course more clean the the rest of the city

View from the restaurant to the Taj in the evening. Quite good!

All the things that are forbidden... Hands? Oh gloves... Books? Newspapers? Other nationalities?!

Entrance gate to the Taj Mahal grounds - everything planned, all the numbers and so on. A masterpiece!

It looks kind of empty without the towers...

We stayed there for some time, enjoying the sight. A guide was more or less not needed. Alot of other tourists had guides and they all told the same old stories. I bet all of them have a master of history (as our guide claimed). Anyway if you go inside and wait at some spots where alot of people are standing around you should be able to hear a few words and annecdotes the guides say and know almost everything aswell. At a few spots there was security making sure no one just lingers around and the flow of visitors keeps moving (like in the Mysore palace). We found the "only" flaw of the Taj and saw some other neat things (optical illusions etc. on the Taj). It is actually really pretty. We were lucky, that most of the construction was over or at least was only on the back side of the Taj Mahal. I had seen pictures of other travellers, who were there just a few weeks earlier and the front view of the Taj Mahal was partly obstructed by construction (or reconstruction/ restauration) work.

View over the garden infront of the Taj Mahal (from the Mahal itself)

The optical illusion! The zigzags make the column look, as if it had edges, but its round!

Christina and I at the backside of the Taj

Two more pictures of the Taj Mahal

Our guide had left in search for more customers and to tell them the same stories. Must be kind of dull I think. On the ther hand, if you earn good money while only repeating something you learned long ago isn't too bad I guess.
So we took some more pictures walking around and left the Taj Mahal to go towards town. We looked at other sights from the outside, because all of them cost about 500 Rupees, supposedly the Taj Mahal Ticket would give you a discount, the 500 was the discounted price. I guess the one fort might have been worth it, but it was still way too hot to enjoy anything. We walked past it to the train station, got our next tickets to Jaipur, booked a hostel online and headed in search for something to eat. The Lonely Planet map wasn't really helpful and so we didn't find anything where it said something should be. So we took a rickshaw and he took us to a lassi place (at least we asked for one). It was McDonalds...

The Red Fort of Agra (it actually is really big!

We got a coke and went in search for out hostel in the streets of Agra. Christina tried to d some shopping, but found nothing she liked. In the evening we tried going into the opposite direction of the Taj and find something more local to eat, but were sent away by locals. They got a rickshaw driver to take us to some place. After he had passed about 20 restaurants we told him to stop and drop us at the next one. We had nice Biryani and Tali and walked slowly in the dark of Agras alleys back to the hostel. Our host had given us a better room, because he heard we had slept in the common room. It was better. So we had moved to the ground floor and slept well. The next morning we took a train to Jaipur. We were at the station on time, yet way too early. The train had an hour delay and so we waited. In the train some nice guys gave us some snacks to eat and we talked to them about the games we were playing (they were confused why we also shuffled the deck after a game, eventhough cards hadn't been used). In all we arrived in Jaipur about 2 hours late...