Agra and the Red Fort

Agra is the where the Taj Mahal is located and we were determined to see it despite the short stop in India.

After speaking to the tour company from yesterday we cancelled a nights stay in Dehli and arranged for a driver to take us to Agra to see the Red Fort and the Taj, stop in a hotel in Agra and then be taken to the airport for our flight to Hanoi tomorrow.

After getting into the wrong cab and nearly taken straight to the airport we found our driver Hannish and set off.  The traffic has just got to be seen to be believed – Hannish said “no left no right no start no stop no rules”

How it all works is just amazing, the pictures don’t do justice to the chaos. It took us nearly 5 hours to go 200km and that was thought to be pretty good going.

On the way we saw more elephants,  camels, donkeys, water buffalo and ox  all harnessed to some sort of cart or other,  and cows and black pigs just wandering across the main roads.  There are lots of black eagles in the area too.  Will try and get more photos but it’s a bit tricky whilst in a car.

We stopped for some street food for breakfast on the side of the road – everything cooked on the stone oven you can see.

Not too sure what we ordered but it tasted pretty good and cost peanuts.

The Red Fort is the second big draw to Agra after the Taj, built about 1500. I think the story goes that the king had three wives, one Christian, one Muslim and one Hindi, oh and 16 unofficial wives.

The official Christian wife had 14 kids, don’t know how many his unofficial ones had; busy man but you can see why he had to build such a big fort.  Although to be fair it was extended a bit by his successors.  He even built a prison solely for women for when they got a bit rowdy. This is the view from one of the wives apartments – the area with the trees in it was used for keeping tigers and elephants in – just in case someone was lucky and stupid enough to climb the outer walls and get past the guards.

Our first view of the Taj through the smog from the fort – going there tomorrow at 0600 to catch the sunrise. 

Going to be a long day tomorrow as it’s an overnight flight again after we get back to Dehli from Agra and the Taj.