Big Blue Travel

From Delhi to Agra…

We hopped on board a pre booked train to Agra, all very civilised really, reserved seating, bottle of water, newspaper and even breakfast served to you. This I’m sure will changed on our next train journey we have planned. Be warned, the toilets are still not overly delightful.

A 3 hour train journey landed us in Agra, I have been dreaming of this place for years. The city itself seemed quite small and very touristy, unsurprisingly. The build up of familiar coffee houses and fast food chains makes Agra a very surreal place to be in. Only staying 1 night here meant that we (like most others) were only here to see one thing. One of the 7 wonders of the world.

Before we made our way to the main event we toured round Agra Fort also known as the Red Fort. Built by, and the home of the man who built the Taj Mahal for his wife. The beautiful red walls of this fort really are astonishing and the size is overwhelming and the intricate details of the wall carvings keep you intrigued for hours. As a visitor you only get to see 25% of the fort as the rest is used by the military nowadays.

What a Wonder

On to the main event, the Taj Mahal. As the locals are trying to keep pollution away from this magnificent structure you are taken to the gates by electric buses (abit like golf buggies) where you get your tickets and scramble amongst the other tourists awaiting this amazing building. As you walk through the gates and under the archway of the out building to the postcard image of the Taj Mahal it truly is a spectacular sight. You could wonder round the ground for hours and I would still be amazed by the whole thing. Naturally there are hundreds of people everywhere trying to get that perfect profile picture image but please don’t let that put you off going, it truly lives up to the name and is a complete  Wonder! Add it to your bucket list now!

From afar the Taj Mahal is huge but as you move closer and closer to the building it truly is overwhelming how enormous this building really is. Some might say a little over the top for a mausoleum - The Taj Mahal was built for one of the emperor’s wives (his favourite) when she passed away. She asked for only 3 things when she died, To bury her somewhere spectacular, to never marry again and to look after their children. He did all of these 3 things, he built the Taj Mahal, (his other wives were not so lucky, these ladies have a small grave each outside the Taj Mahal which no one visits), he never married again and he did indeed look after their children. His youngest son however didn’t return the favour, He killed is brothers and imprisoned his Father just so that he could become emperor.

I would highly recommend a tour guide for both of these sites, Our guide was so informative about the history of India and the buildings in it and we would have been slightly bewildered without him. 

Cooperative Business

Intrepid travel link up with local businesses called a cooperative business, they help keep family businesses running and keep people employed throughout the country. We were taken to the knotted carpet business today and saw how these exquisite pieces of home décor are made from scratch. The detail and hard work that goes into them is unbelievable. A 1cm line of hand knotted carpet will take a while day to complete! Well worth the money of you get a chance to visit.

We shared an evening meal with Kalyani in her home this evening. (Picture on the right, Kaylani wears the red dress, her Mother, Brother and Husband all work within the family business now). 5 years ago she decided to open her home up to tourist to offer cooking demonstrations of local food. Off the recommendation of her guests she then turned her home into a guest house and B&B. She was so welcoming and I would encourage anyone visiting the area to book (through Big Blue) yourself a demonstration of your own. The food was amazing!

Moving from Agra to Jaipur we took a private mini bus, the journey is quite long, around 5 ½ hours. We came across a slight delay when one of our tyres burst (practically ripped in half), which when you see some of the roads you can imagine happens quite regularly. But having a spare tyre meant that we weren’t hanging around on the road side too long before we were back on our way.

Good Karma

India has many religions and they all live peacefully amongst one another, however 70% of people are Hindu. In the Hindu religion there are millions of Gods, but they don’t necessarily go to the temples to pray to them. Most people take their children to the temples to give positive energy but its not part of their daily routine. They live by the understanding that everything that is useful to you is God. For example our bus driver would pray every morning to his bus and leave incense because the bus gives him a job, the bus helps him provide for his family, therefore the most important thing to him. I absolutely love this sentiment and definitely feel more people should be more gracious to the things around them that get them through daily life.

Do good things and good will come to you…. Speak soon.