India, Sri Lanka and The Maldives - Days 17 to 19

At the Taj Mahal, Agra

The schedule said to leave at 09.00, but that was when breakfast started so we sneaked in early, and got the time pushed back to 09.30. A long drive (6ish hours) though we did get to go on a section of the new Mumbai- Delhi 4 lane motorway, or 5 as Ram counted as apparently the hard shoulder is a lane, along which pedestrians are allowed! About an hour and a half to Agra Ram got a bit agitated, pointing out the bird sanctuary that we are due to visit tomorrow, along with the fort on the hill. This after visiting the Taj Mahal at sunrise and the Red Fort of Agra. He took matters into his own hands and we are pleased he did, liaising with our Agra guide Ashlish that not only would we do the ‘back view’ of the Taj at sunset we would go straight to the Red Fort on our arrival. It is another fabulous structure which I think we saw all of, before rushing to the car and crossing the river to the viewpoint of the Taj.

On a section of a new four lane motorway that will eventually connect Delhi to Mumbai. Our Indian driver saw five lanes (what we know as a hard shoulder is counted as an extra lane over here), but it it was busy it'd be eight or nine lanes!

I had been a bit distracted as about the time Ram pointed out the bird sanctuary my phone stopped working on data, though still worked for calls so I was contacting Lebara who talked me through all sorts of checks to find nothing needed changing. On the third call they finally agreed to open a ticket, which probably won’t get looked at till Monday! After chatting to a group of four Brits at Ranthambore we had talked about getting a SIM for Brian as £3 for 28 days it seems silly not to. Trying to persuade Ashlish to give us a hand on Saturday night proved difficult and then on Sunday it was too early!

Seen on another road travelling at 80kph (50mph) what could possibly go wrong?

As we passed them look what we saw. This is a right hand drive vehicle, so the man in the green jacket sitting on the window frame is actually in the drivers seat

Day 18

Meant to be an 05.30 start to ‘see sunrise over the Taj’ we were easily persuaded that 06.30 would be fine. Ram is always early, as are we, so his 06.13 forwarded message of one of mine saying ‘please come’ was not a surprise. He has both forwarded my messages back to me and sent voice recordings, both of which have worked absolutely fine.

Agra fort and the palace inside, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan

We collected Ashlish and arrived at the car park where there was a big queue for golf carts to walk the kilometre to the entrance gate. We were happy to walk though I think Ashlish wished he hadn’t suggested it, apparently he thought he walked fast till he walked with me! Very little queue and £13 for tickets each (which included shoe covers and a bottle of water) and we were on our way. There is no getting away from it, it is a beautiful building, built by Shar Jahar for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who he obviously loved very much, despite promising her on her deathbed that he wouldn’t marry again, and then marrying her sister six days after her death!

Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal memorial for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, but soon after his youngest son, Aurangzeb murdered his two elder brothers and imprisoned Shah Jahar in this area of Agra Fort for seven years, so he could take the throne himself. Shah Jahan eventually died and was buried alongside his wife in the Taj Mahal. From the windows of the tower he could look out on the Taj Mahal in the distance, which can be seen in this photo

He spent so much on the structure he brought famine to the area in the 22 years it took to build. We assume this was one of the reasons his youngest son had him imprisoned in the Red Fort for 7 years until his death, when he was buried beside Mumtaz. At least he was in a corner of the Fort where he could look at the Taj. This may, or may not have been the son’s justification, as despite being the youngest son he had killed his three elder brothers to get to the position of being ruler!

Agra Fort is an imposing, very grand building

To give a focus to the Taj they have built beautiful replicas of both coffins for us to look at (though not photograph) as the real ones are underneath.

This is the rear view of the Taj Mahal on the other side of the Yamuna river which we visited at sunset. You can just see the red glow of the setting sun on the right (west) side of the dome

Back to the hotel for breakfast before out again at 10.00 back to Fatephur Sikri, the fort on the hill, about an hour and a half west of Agra, where we met our next guide. He seemed to know his stuff but really did talk very quickly, so much of what he said went a bit over our heads. Again it was interesting, and a UNESCO site built over 14 years by a Mughal ruler who had three wives, one a Muslim, one a Hindu and one a Christian, in order to try to get power from all directions! This did lead to some interesting structural differences in the areas for the different wives. Despite taking 14 years to build it was only actually inhabited for 4 as there was just not enough water about to make it all work. They went to the Red Fort in Agra and it became a stopping off point if travelling west.

Behind us are foundations of a building started about the same time as the Taj Mahal and directly on the opposite bank. It's octagonal in shape and exactly in line and some say it was the start of a mausoleum that Shah Jahan started to build for himself before he was imprisoned by his son. Others dispute this, but we'll never know

Somewhere during this tour my phone started working again, all very strange!

Early next morning we were up bright and early to see one of the wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal - and it didn't disappoint!

We then went to the bird reserve, not knowing what to expect, where we were met by another guide, who had worked on the reserve as a research chemist until his project finished since when he joined the bird spotting guides. We got into an electric tuk-tuk, lovely and peaceful, and pottered off. First stop into the undergrowth didn’t find the snake he had been hoping for, living in a hole it shares with a porcupine. Second stop however and we could hear it before we could see it, and it was no small thing, about 3 m long, gently slithering through the undergrowth. Mrs Python was also by the hole, but we couldn’t see so much of her. Great pictures and on to the wetlands area of the park. What a huge variety of birds, storks, geese, ducks, herons kingfishers… will just have to see how many of the pictures we can identify!

A truly wonderful building, especially in the early morning mist, despite the crowds of people

Shattered after our run of early starts, back to the hotel for about 17.00 ish (it would have been a long day if we’d had to do the Red Fort too!) Sadly as driving back to Agra my phone stopped working again, pretty much as we crossed the state line into Uttar Pradesh. Shame as we are in UP for the next couple of stops. I rang Lebara to update them on this but they seemed particularly unimpressed. Well have to see what happens today

Trying to get lots of different angles, this one from one of the corners 

Day 19

Today being day 19. Another early start, collected at 05.30 to get the 06.30 Agra to Lucknow train, on which I am now writing. Again, en route to the station we collected another man who took us in to the station, to our train, into our seats where he took a photo of us and left telling us not to get off the train! The meeter in Lucknow has been told he has to help us get a new SIM card!

I like this one of Jackie with our guide Ashish walking into the sunrise next to one of the minarets 

There are so many other fabulous photos. This one is from the front of the Taj looking back to the entrance gate, the Daravaja-e-rauja

Jackie with Ashish outside the Taj, him pointing out the intricate marble carving and inlays 

Morning visit to the Fatehpur Sikri fort near Agra, built by emperor Akbar between 1572 and 1585. It was a walled city with walls of 9.5km in length. The central column in here represents many religions from Mughal, Hindu, Jain, Islam, Persian and Christian

A magnificent and huge fort that was abandoned after 4 years but used almost as a guest house for some years after for pilgrims on their way from Jaipur to Agra

Afternoon visit to Keoladeo Ghana National Park. We didn't know what to expect here but it was a fabulous visit, guided by an ex employee who spent almost his entire working life here in this 29 acre wilderness. He managed to find this 3m python  slithering through the undergrowth and I managed to snap this photo of him hiding in the undergrowth

There his is sliding almost silently through the bushes

This really turned out to be a really good visit. We happened to be there at the right time of year as there were so many migrating species here and our guide had such an eye for spotting things. We can only remember a few names now, so there will be many blanks that need filling in. These are painted storks

Some spotted deer had waded out to an island

Turtles basking in the sunshine

An Indian spot billed duck

An  antelope

An eagle eyed heron waiting to pounce

This is something like a grey headed marsh duck

Our guide seemed quite excited to see this. Its a bay-backed shrike

Look at this beauty. John tells me its a white throated kingfisher

Two Pied Kingfishers that look like they are talking to each other

And this little beauty is like the kingfishers we have at home, its a juvenile blue eared kingfisher. Thanks for the ID's John. And, by the way, I took all these photos myself with my little compact camera with 40:1 zoom lens

He told us this was an eagle swooping in but didn't enlarge on what type it was. I just managed to capture this as he flew by

This is a  Drongo. I got just so many great photos, it was a fabulous tour. He had a telescope with him and the crisp images through that put all these photos to shame. But you get the idea

We came back to the car park and a tame spotted deer had come in looking for food. The family who had set out their picnic were hurredly collecting it in before he helped himself

This morning at Agra Fort railway station. We had to almost step over the sleeping bodies of the homeless to get to the platform

Through the morning mist and the train window our last view of the Taj Mahal as we crossed the river on our way to Lucknow. It's been a really good, but hectic visit to Agra, we've thoroughly enjoyed it, but its all very tiring! Next up, Lucknow. See you next time