Sunday, December 19, 2010

Agra - How to visit the Taj Mahal allone



Happy to have reached a cheap hostel in Agra with great views safely and looking forward to continue our trips by train we enjoyed a rather foggy / smoggy sunset viewing the shapes of the Taj Mahal. We heard form some other travellers that the french premier minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni were in Agra as well and that in the afternoon all tourists had been kicked out of the mausoleum so that the VIPs could enjoy it without being disturbed. There were rumors that they might want to visit it again the next day, so we tried to figure out a plan how to see this monument anyways. As I was told by a girl who had spoken to the guards, that the Taj Mahal would be open in the early morning only and than maybe in the afternoon again, we decided to get up a 5am and be the first persons to buy our tickets at 6:15am. The clever part was, that we split, I waited at the actual entrance while Patricia and Agus waited at the ticket office and like this we managed to enter the mausoleum at 6:40 while behind us the cue was growing and growing by every minute. We actually ran inside, overtook a group of koreans and took our fist shots of the completely empty Taj Mahal. I have to admit that that there might be flowing some japanese blood through our veins, but it was definitely worth the struggle. We entered the tomb of :……………….. and ……………….. alone and felt the peace and atmosphere of this place. a few minutes later this harmonic and beautiful place converted into a noisy hall full of visitors pushing each other and (real/fake) guides trying to sell their services. By then we already had left the tomb and walked around the garden. When the sun came out, I took some more pictures, but by then it was already crowded everywhere.
Luckily this monument is built of marble and very resistant to all the feet walking over it. I am wandering sometimes, how much of the famous monuments would would be left if they lost a tiny bit of mass when ever being photographed ;)
After 2 hours I left to get some more sleep after this very short night, happy that we had accomplished the objective of our visit here. I know, this sounds a bit ambitious… In fact I don´t like visiting famous monuments very much, as they normally are overcrowded. It is a tricky thing not to visit one of the world wonders, being so close. You would have to give explanations to everybody…
How ever I am very grateful we had the chance to feel and enjoy this magical place for some moments alone. I hope you like the pictures...

4 comments:

  1. Hallo Volker,
    sehr schoene Bilder! Use your own logic - take as many pics of VIPs as possible, maybe they will disappear ;-)
    Du schaust muede aus auf dem Bild. Ich hoffe, es geht dir gut!? Schau, dass du am 24. mal irgendwo online gehen kannst... Wuerden uns freuen, wenn wir dich auch irgendwie erwischen.
    Cheers, viele Umarmungen aus ADL.

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  2. Hi Bernhard, danke fürs reinschaun. Natürlich schau ich müde aus auf den Fotos, das ganze war ja auch um 6 in der Früh und ich bin ja nicht gerade ein Morgenmensch ...zumindest noch nicht, ich arbeite aber dran ;)))
    Bin grad wieder am jonglieren wegen noch ein paar zu treffenden Entscheidungen ...war mich dessen nicht bewusst, dass mein Geist so wankelmütig sein kann ;)
    Hast recht, am 24. will ich auf jeden fall mal Stimmfühlung aufnehmen, hoffentlich spielen Internet und Stromversorgung mit. Dir und den deinen eine feste Umarmung aus Bodgaya

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  3. Hallo Volker, echt super bilder! der turm im nebel besonders!!!
    Lg Wolfgang

    Ps.: schreib dir heute eh noch ein mail

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