Not all wonders are created equal . . .

After Varanasi we travelled to Agra with a short but delayed flight to Delhi and then a 4 hour drive, with it taking us one hour just to leave Delhi. After admiring the countryside and all the brick ovens en route we arrived in our hotel at 19:00. Not a single photograph was taken but I knew I’d make up for it the next day!

Another 04:30 alarm for a 05:30 pick up and we were at the Taj Mahal for 05:45, with a lot of other people, or more accurately, tourists with their guides. With sunrise at 06:40 it opened at 06:00 and we all swarmed in and I marvelled at the array of cameras on show🤣

At this time of day there is no real light, and today the pollution was worse than in Delhi. The colour of the marble changes in the light – cream at sunrise, bright white in the midday sun and pink at sunset. There was a mist today which added to the atmosphere, but combined with the smog meant the pictures are not the classic clear blue sky shots, with a wonderful reflection in the water that you see on the internet. Please believe me when I say I don’t mind – it’s about the experience not the picture, and hopefully my memory of this visit will last for a long time yet.

I’m not going to write about its history, that’s what the internet is for. However I am going to talk about the wonder of the place. This is our second of the “new seven wonders of the world” this year, and in my opinion this beats the Colosseum hands down. I appreciate that the Colosseum is approx 1600 years older so as a feat of engineering and building longevity it’s truly incredible and its deserves it’s place on the list. However the Taj Mahal is all that plus exquisite craftsmanship and finesse to create the spectacular detail. When you are at the colosseum you can feel the raw, guttural energy of the sport, and when at the Taj Mahal its majestic and serene and you can feel the love the Emperor had for his wife. In my opinion, love conquers all.

Only the most skilled and meticulous could create that precision and detail. Each filigree pane in the main mausoleum was created from a single piece of marble – one mistake or break and it had to be started again. It is said to have taken a year to create each one. The colourful geometric and floral designs are made from inlays of precious stones not from paint so they are as vibrant today as they were 400 years ago. Not only that they are still firmly in-situ. The Arabic calligraphy around the arches is larger at the top than at the bottom so when you look up to the top it all looks the same size. How did they work all that out so long ago? It is no surprise that it took 22 years to complete. It is also no surprise that all the craftsmen were extremely proud of their work and that they carved their signatures into the“paving” stones of the walkways outside the buildings near the gardens (see photo). These skills have been passed down generation to generation to generation so that Agra is still renowned for this work and we were told that workers from Agra went to Abu Dhabi to decorate their new grand mosque, and they used the same secret glue that was used for the Taj Mahal.

Whatever we went to see next would be an anti-climax and after breakfast and checking out we went to Fatehpur Sikri en route to Jaipur. To be honest, to me this was just another red sandstone Fort, mosque and mausoleum. I found the most interesting thing was that the mogul emperor decided that religion should be more inclusive instead of divisive and blended the traditions of virtually all the religions into one, and the pillar has symbols from all of those included. The only religion not included was Judaism and we were told it was because there weren’t many/any in India at the time (~1570s).

The next stop was Chand Baori which on reading about before we arrived did not sound very inspiring – “a stepwell” and we didn’t have high hopes. How wrong we were. This was well worth the visit. It’s an incredible feat of architecture, was fascinating and was well worth the visit.

Both of these stops were strategically timed in our 4-5 hour journey from Agra to Jaipur. Our driver carefully avoided flocks of goats, two cows at an early stage of their romance, kamikaze cows just running headlong into the road and cows just sitting in the road watching the world go by. Whilst this wasn’t the toll expressway it was still the major road! We arrived totally exhausted at our hotel at 19:45, to be told we were being picked up the following morning at 08:00!