When I first started researching India and our upcoming move, I fell in love with the Taj Mahal and the story surrounding it (read about it here). I read four books devoted to the amazing story behind the construction of the structure. Then we arrived and I put it on my "when company comes to visit" list.
Well ... company came (my mom) and we made plans to visit. Husb offered to stay home with the Littles and Terran would accompany us on a Sunday and we would make the 4 (ish) hour drive south to Agra.
It turned out that mom got sick (blasted Delhi Belly!) and Terran and I decided to make the trip on our own. It was a huge bummer to leave mom behind, but we figured our options were limited for getting another weekend to go without the littles trailing, and off we went.
If you read me with any regularity, you already know that I often enjoy the journey TO the destination more than the destination itself, and this trip was no different.
We left at 6:15am and enjoyed traffic-free roads ...
Salivated over the bananas. They are SO good here!
Watched the train that we COULD have ridden, had Kushal and the Husb not insisted we take the car.
And then came to a screeching halt. Traffic was at a standstill.
Sobering.
Kushal took a turn to the left, and we found ourselves weaving through a back road. Some of the sights we saw, on our detour to Agra (click on a photo to see it larger, if you'd like) ::
(this truck cracked me up ... it says "Question Bank")
And THEN ... all of a sudden ... we saw the sign ::
- Know that your FRRO will not enable you to get the Indian admission price ... plan to fork over Rs 750 per person. You WILL get a free bottle of water and free shoe covers with your ticket. DO take advantage of the shoe covers! Without them, you will be walking barefoot into the Taj and the marble is H-O-T !
- You have several modes of transportation from the parking lot up to the booking office. Camel, Bicycle Rickshaw, "auto bike" rickshaw, etc. We paid Rs 200 for the two of us to take the camel IN ... and Rs. 40 for the two of us to take a bicycle rickshaw back.
- We were incorrectly informed by several men in the parking lot that bags were not allowed in. This is surely not the case, and the only thing we saw was that eatables, video cameras and cigarettes were not allowed.
- If you visit both the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal, you only end up paying Rs 1000 per person for the two locations. You simply need to show your ticket from the first admission to get the reduced ticket price of Rs 25- for the second admission.
- Leave early in the morning, and you can reach Agra from Delhi in 3.5 hours!
