During our second weekend here, we made a day trip to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal and Agra fort. We hired a bus for the seven of us, which picked us up at 5 h 30 am outside our apartment. We arrived at the Taj late in the morning, and spent several hours wandering around. I was surprisingly not that excited to see the Taj, since it seems like one of those tourist things you are obligated to do. I ended up really loving it though, and was struck by its majestic nature and beauty. I was surprised to find that although there were so many people all around, it still had a sense of peace and serenity to it. After we went inside to see the tombs, we sat outside on the white marble for a while and soaked up some much needed sun (the sun is often obscured from fog or pollution in Delhi).
After lunch, our tour guide (who our driver picked up on the side of the road, insisting we needed him and that he was his friend. We were assured we would only have to “tip according to how much we felt he was worth” afterwards) walked us through Agra fort, a beautiful, sprawling, 16th century fort used when Agra was the country’s capital. The fort backs up against the Yamuna River, and has tons of open space and grassy park-like areas where monkeys love to play.
We returned to Delhi the same day after a five hour drive on a terrifying road in the dark. It took a little longer because we encountered bumper to bumper traffic coming into Delhi at 10 h 30 at night. Oh, India.
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