Sure, I could have posted one of my more skilled shots of the Taj Mahal, but I did not. Instead, the infamous pose.
This weekend a group of us went up to Agra, via Delhi, for a trip to the Taj Mahal. That’s the start of the story. Let me skip quickly to the end, for your delightment.
The Amazing Race
On Sunday afternoon, a number of people in our group received text messages announcing that Air Deccan, with whom we had booked our flight tickets, had cancelled our flight back to Bangalore. “Wonderful,” we all thought. After doing some work to reconcile the situation, we figured out that we had two options:
- Fly back on the first flight in the morning and get back to Bangalore at 9:30. Our classes start at 9.
- Receive a refund for our tickets.
Let me set a little more context. This weekend, we were travelling in supreme style. Let’s just say that somebody knew somebody, which means that the 9 of us had a caravan of vehicles and a police escort. That means when the light on the street says “red,” we continue on…no stop. Still, the traffic in Indian cities cannot be understated. It is dead slow.
Ok, so back to the flight situation. We decide that the best thing we can do at this point is to get to the airport as soon as possible. Tell that to a group of drivers in state-owned vehicles, here’s what they do: look around at each other, grin, and drive like hell. It was amazing.
You know those movie chase scenes where there’s a car running all over the place at top speed, on the wrong side of the road, with more cars chasing behind? That was us.
Needless to say, we got to the airport relatively quickly, and eventually tricked the system into selling us tickets for only $100 more than we had paid originally (compared with $400 if not tricked). Good stuff.
The Taj Herself
The greater part of the weekend was spent looking at tombs, forts, homes, and other old, old stone buildings. The Taj Mahal was amazing, and perfectly symmetrical. The things the designer of this building thought about was amazing. For example, the turrets on the corners are all angled out 5 degrees, so that from far away they look straight.The most impressive thing about the Taj Mahal (and the other historic buildings in Agra) is the fine detailed stone carvings. There is no paint on this building. Every time you see color on the building, you must realize that that color has been engrained in the skin of the building, not painted on. That means somebody has chiseled away the area that needs color, and implanted stone that is the needed color. Multiply that by a factor of huge. I call that impressive.
The Taj Mahal, and all the other sights of Agra are highly recommended. The expectation is true: if you come to India, you must go to the Taj Mahal.
Awesome Accomodations
I won’t go on too long about the accomodations, let’s just say those were taken care of as well. We stayed at the Mughal Sheraton, a 5 Star, no holds barred facility. It was quite nice…especially the beds (a haven of softness after nights and nights of hard hard beds).
Alright, I’ll end the oozing there. Here’s the point: if you come to India, to to Taj Mahal. (And have somebody upgrade your stay…by the way…we owe a big thanks to the person who upgraded ours, but I’ll protect her anonymity here, either way, Thank You.)