Taj Mahal in Agra - India Trip

Water and Wing arrived New Delhi together yesterday evening, and they are transferred from New Delhi to Agra directly during night. While the 2 girls were sleeping at the back of the car, the car hit a cow! Wing had seat belt on but Water didn’t. Wing was okay, but Water’s head bumped to the ceiling of the car. I strongly suggest you put on seat belt while travelling in India, the road is the most dangerous place in India. Fortunately, both of them are fine, also the driver. The driver hasn’t slept for 2 days, so I do not think this is an “accident”, this is something that will happen. Also, I do not think Water and Wing made a wise decision to arrive New Delhi late evening, and got transferred to Agra over night. However, what happened is happened. Ritu’s boss, the owner of AG Tours called me the same day as the car accident happened. I pointed out they should never allow a driver who didn’t sleep for 2 days to go on the road, and asked him to compensate Water and Wing as the way they wished. These 2 girls are nice, they do not want any hospital check or money, and they just wanted to attend an Indian Wedding or see a Bollywood movie. Since invitation is required for wedding, the AG Tours offered them a free movie at the last day of the trip for them.

We left the hotel at 6am to make sure we can enter Taj Mahal right when the door opens, so that we can beat the crowd. When we arrived at the parking lot, it was still very dark, since the sun won’t rise until 6:52am. Our driver seemed the first time in Agra, he was not good at pointing us directions, he  himself sometimes got lost too... After we got off the car, we were on our own, we didn’t know that the parking lot is at least 1km away from the main entrance of Taj Mahal, and in the total darkness we were just wondering inside the huge parking lot without making any real progress… Finally we gave up, and accepted the fact that we have to take a rickshaw tricycle. The price is 50 INR per person for 1 minute tricycle ride, but at least we found the correct way. Men and Women line up separately at the Taj Mahal gate, and foreigners and Indians also line up separately. After 10 minutes line up, I finally noticed that we need to purchase our tickets at an office close by instead of at the gate. The ticket is 1000 INR per person. Camera and cellphones are free. Food is not allowed. The door opens after sun rise, or maybe half an hour after sun rise as we experienced...

After entering  from the eastern gate, we followed the red arrow to enter the main gate. The main gate in early morning:

Even in early morning, there are already a lot of people accumulated at the main gate. People like to stop at the main gate to take photos of Taj Mahal, but I do not think this is the ideal place, because Taj Mahal is relatively small as indicated by the picture below:

 

I would suggest you pass the main gate, and go directly to the central pool, as circled in the map below. This is the best place to take pictures of Taj Mahal.

On the way to the central pool (obviously as you can tell, I didn’t figure out the central pool is the best place to take photos until I was done visiting Taj Mahal. I wasted too much time on the way to the central pool…):

Once arrived the central pool, you can take a photo to emphasize the reflections:

There is a white marble platform raised up in the center of the central pool. The famous Diana bench is located on the top of the platform. Ideally, if no other people and Taj Mahal is not in repair, then the picture should look like this:

However, the reality could be like this:

So try to get to the central pool as fast as you can. If there are already people ahead of you, then just take a scenery photo:

Once you finally arrived at the white building, local Indians will remove their shoes and walk barefoot outside and inside the white building. However, since foreigners paid way more for the entrance fee, a pair of shoe covers will be handed to you to cover your shoes. Almost every temple of India does not allow entry with shoes (most times socks and shoe covers are not allowed neither), and they really like to use marble as the floor, which is quite cold to walk with Barefoot. I would suggest you save this pair of shoe covers for future use, and also bring plastic bags as shoe covers and thick socks for your India trip, in case shoe cover and socks are allowed (Everything is negotiable in IndiaJ). This is especially important for women, who normally feel colder than men.

There are 2 identical mosques beside the white building, above is the western on. In the morning ,you can take a backlight photo from the door inside the western mosque (the picture below is from internet):

At the entrance of Taj Mahal, if you look at, it will be looks like the picture above: the Islam mosque styled roof becomes invisible.

Once you get inside the white building, photos are no longer allowed. There are 2 coffins inside the building, the smaller one which is located in the center is for the favorite wife, and the bigger one beside the smaller one is for the king. The reason that the king’s coffin is not located in the center is because originally, Taj Mahal is only for the favorite wife, the king planned to build another site similar to Taj Mahal on the other side of the river for himself. However, building Taj Mahal costed too much money and made the country poor. The king’s son took over the king’s position and prisoned him until he dies. After he died, his son made a marble coffin for him and put it beside his favorite wife’s. The picture below is from the internet showing the inside of the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".  It is also one of the new 7 wonders of the world.

My mom really liked Taj Mahal. In her mind, Taj Mahal is the most beautiful building in the world. This may not be true, but as in the list of places that I have been to, Taj Mahal and Santorini are the 2 best places to take portrait photos. Just remember to wear bright colored cloth, the white background will make you pop. Look at the picture below: on the left, Diana picked a red top and purple skirt with matching purple shoes; on the right, Kate picked a dress which has almost identical color and pattern as Taj Mahal. Which side looks better? Let’s just ignore the bold guy for a moment while you make your choice :p