After advising our boss of the issue with the accommodations on Friday, we decided to pack up our valuables and trek off to Agra for the weekend.

Since I don’t always sleep well and there was a good chance that I’d already be awake, we agreed that only Ted would bother attempting to get a wake up call. We wanted to get to the train station as early as possible, so we settled on meeting up at 6am. 6am rolled by and I was up – but Ted hadn’t received his wake up call. By the time he was up, dressed and ready to go it was already after 8am.Â

We called a Taxi and headed into New Dehli to catch the train to Agra. After multiple trips to and from the Tourist Office – and fending off multitudes of hawkers selling their wares and those attempting misdirection through lying about whether or not the TO was open – we managed to get seats in 1AS on the 10:20 train to Agra. We were assured that this train would see us arrive in Agra in around 3 hours.

With just over an hour to spare before the train arrived, we headed across the street in search of a money exchange office. After passing up on three dubious looking places, we managed to convert some $$ to rupees and rushed back across the street to catch our train.

4.5 hours later, we arrived in Agra. During the journey we’d decided that we’d be staying overnight to see the Taj at night and at dawn the next day. We caught a pre-paid auto rickshaw to the area around the Taj and walked to the Sheela Hotel. Aside from having a great write up in Ted’s travel guide book (Rough Guide), I thought it would be a hoot to stay in a hotel that shares my name. We managed to get a few rooms – Ted took the one without the running water – dropped our gear and headed straight to the Taj Mahal.

The line up of expectant visitors wrapped around the block. At 4:30pm we joined the queue to purchase tickets, then 20 minutes later were once again in queue – this time to get in the door.

There’s been quite a bit of anger about the recent jump in the price of admission to the Taj Mahal for tourists. While residents pay 15 rupees to view this monument to everlasting love, all non-residents are charged a whopping 750 rupees (approx 20$ USD). The locals in line with us seemed far more indignant about the rise in admission for tourists than any foreign nationals. I’m certain many of us would have paid far more to see this man made wonder of the world.

From 5:30pm – 7pm we watched the sun set on the Taj Mahal. It was spectacular.

Inside the gates to the Taj Mahal

Mosque @ Taj Mahal

After watching the sun set on the Taj we headed back to the hotel and ordered supper. Despite appearing on the menu, there was no Dal Makhani to be had so I settled for a potato and pea curry. After a nice pot of lemon tea and a trip to an internet cafe to send a quick email to the hubby, we toddled back to our rooms to pass out. A 5:30 am wake up call was arranged so we could get into the Taj when it opened and see the mausoleum at dawn.

Despite crawling off to bed at 10:30pm, I didn’t manage to fall asleep until well after 2 am. There was loud singing, partying, car and auto rickshaw horns were honking – it sounded like a great party. I was tempted to investigate, but was more interested in trying to sleep so I wouldn’t be dead on my feet for our travels the next day.

Every good story must come to an end. This seems a natural place to rest for a bit. It’s 2am and I’m exhausted. I’m heading to bed. I’ll post part 2 of the trip to Taj soon.

Technorati Tags: Taj Mahal, Agra, India, train, Sheela Hotel

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