Agra, India

General Info	My Route	Delhi	Jaisalmer	Sam Sand Dunes
Jodhpur	Udaipur	Jojawar	Pushkar	Jaipur
Agra/Taj Mahal	Varanasi	Sarnath	Kolkata	More Photos

Taj Maj area outside Taj Mahal's East Gate

From Jaipur, we took a 5 hour bus to Agra. Agra is on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was founded by Sultan Sikandar Lodi in the year 1506. It lies currently in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It achieved fame as the capital of the Mughal emperors from 1526 to 1658 and remains a major tourist destination because of its many splendid Mughal-era buildings, most notably the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, all three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Crap the HOT weather is back - 101F degrees! We took tuktuks to Hotel Sheela, which was a little hotel, with rooms around a garden restaurant. Beware of the monkeys and the touts just outside the gate. The rate is 350 Rs per night with cooler (step above a fan but below AC) and bathroom. There's a cool German Shephard that lives there named Tiger. But the reason that many people stay at Sheela is because it is 1/2 block from the East Gate of the Taj Mahal. Location, as they say, is everything! The area around the East Gate is an 'auto exclusion zone.' It's an area where vehicles with excessive exhaust emissions aren't allowed, in order to try to limit the amount of pollution that will lead to acid rain and contribute to the Taj's marble deterioration.

So, there are tons of sites in Agra other than the Taj Mahal. The Red Fort, where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son. There's the Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb, which is also known as the Baby Taj. The large Mosque named Jama Masjid and the botanical gardens of Mehtab Bagh.

Unfortunately, our bus was late and we were leaving on the overnight train the next day. So I just enjoyed the Taj Mahal and local market near the east gate.

We arrived in Agra close to sunset, so we went to our rooms to set our packs down and then we out to catch of glimpse of the reason we were in Agra. You can walk down a road 5 minutes to the Yamuna River and see the Taj Mahal from the back. Since the Taj is raised, you get a great view for free!!! Oh it was beautiful! We paid a guy 50 rupees to take us to the shore across the river, so we could be directly behind the Taj. It was soooo gorgeous! Then he said that we should come for sunrise, so we got up at 4:45am and met him at 5am to take us to the other shore.

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