Agra

We caught the 6am train from Delhi to Agra. As usual, the Delhi railway station was completely packed. About 200 homeless boys are alleged to live at the railway station, and there are dozens of complete families that just sleep on the platforms at night. What was unusual about that morning was that just as we were about to board our train, one of our group spotted a woman giving birth, right there on the platform. There was nothing much we could do, and she had a man with her (presumably her husband) who was helping so we just had to leave.





We arrived in Agra about three hours later and visited the Agra Red Fort (not to be confused with Delhi’s Red Fort). It was very impressive and there was a lot more to see than in the Delhi fort. From the balconies the Taj Mahal was visible, but as is common in India, it was shrouded in a mix of dust, mist and pollution. We visited the room where Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal to honour his favourite wife Mumtaz, was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb. He spent the last 7 years of his life forlornly gazing at the Taj from his prison, until he finally joined Mumtaz there.


In the afternoon we visited the Taj Mahal itself. Well, it’s everything you expect. It was heaving with people, foreigners and Indians in their thousands. As was becoming common at tourist spots, we were often stopped by total strangers and asked to pose with them in photos. My new-found Dutch friend and room-mate, Elke, was a particular target for photograph-seeking Indians and the photo above shows people lined up to have their picture taken with her.


We queued for about an hour to get in and the length of the queue can be seen in the photo. The queue wound its way around the forecourt, then up to the first level, where it can be seen again winding its way around the building itself. Twice during the queuing, hundreds of Indians at the end of the queue suddenly charged the front of the queue (since they faced each other) and it all became an enormous crushing scrum. Soldiers beat and kicked people until a new queue was formed from the great mass of people. It is easy to see how people die in crowd stampedes here.

The outside of the Taj Mahal is far more interesting than the inside, which is almost pitch-black and had soldiers shouting at people telling them not to take photos, whilst hundreds of people pushed and shoved to get close to the enclosure which held the graves of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan. We left almost as soon as we had entered, and continued to take photos outside as the sun set. So here is the obligatory 'Taj Mahal at sunset' photo. Enjoy!