A visit to fantastic Taj Mahal!

Since Agra is mostly about the Taj Mahal, it was our main event in this city. We set our alarm clock to wake us up at 5:00 AM to get to Taj Mahal before sunrise. We had not booked any transport but like everywhere in India there is always a tuktuk ready to drive you – no matter what time of day it is. We found a tuktuk and were driven to the west entrance of the Taj Mahal.. At first we thought that the driver had dropped us off at the wrong place as it was quite dark in the intersection where we got off but it turned out to be absolutely correct after all, we only happened to be a bit early.

We were almost the first to arrive and the ticket counter had not yet opened. As with all tourist attractions in India, there is a foreign queue with expensive prices and a domestic queue with prices that are a tenth of those we pay. No Indians in sight at this early hour but dozens of tourists started to line up. With tickets in our hands, at a cost of 2000 rupees (30€), it was time to line up in another queue ( or queues as women and men do not stand in the same one here.). Half an hour later and a tedious procedure of stamping and cutting our tickets we finally started to move. But then it soon came to a stop for me. All bags must be scanned and searched and I had Johan’s tripod in my bag, which for some reason is prohibited to bring into the area. I had to go out again and set off for a storage room to leave the tripod.. I got a little angry when I thought it was a pity that we would miss the sunrise and that all the people would get in and ruin the view for us but it was just to obey. I sent Johan to take some pictures while waiting for me but the entrance was far from the main building so he did not get any great pictures while I was away. The next annoying thing was that I had to join the queue again and had to go through security one more time.
But at the end it was not really a problem, we got lots of nice pictures of the Taj Mahal.

Unfortunately, they were renovating one of the towers and one of the shorter sides of the temple, so we had to find views without them in, thought some of the scaffolding was not possible to avoid in the photos. . The Taj Mahal is a fantastic symmetric construction and also the buildings that surround it are so beautiful and perfectly positioned. We spent a few hours in the area and took lots of great photos.

The rest of the time in Agra we spent walking in the city and it did not appear very charming. We mostly saw long wide smelly streets with lots of cars and other honking vehicles. The greatest benefit with our stay in Agra, except for Taj Mahal, was our hotel which was quiet and comfortable with good food that you could get from room service.