And yeah!! Hear came the big blow to my plan perfect. It was “Maha Sivaratri” and every one ( I mean Shakti and his friends) were against the plan of going to haridwar that day as they were preditcting that there would be heavy rush at Haridwar on that day. So we couldn't make it on that day. So plan B(this was already there in my mind) came in to picture where on that day we will first visit Agra and haridwar the next. It was accepted by all and we all set out to see the greatest monument of love “The TajMahal”.We started at around 9:00 had brunch at a dhaba around 60 kms from Delhi. I will talk more about the food in North India shortly. So we reached Agra by 1:00. “Skinder's tomb” was the first place we went for. It is the place where Akbar was buried after his death. This tomb is big and is of great beauty. It took around half an hour to have a look at the tomb. Beware of monkeys at this fort. And there is a big garden with lots of deer and stags. Its worth a visit. See some pictures of it...
Entrance to Skinder Tomb
Main building in THE TOMB
The great Akbar is resting here...
Yeh!! this place is also inside the fort Then we visited Agra fort. It is a must visit place. The fort is HUGE and awesome. And one has to use a guide if he really want to know about the fort. It would be better if one can get a guide approved by the tourism department of India. We got a very elderly man(MR.S.P SHARMA) as our guide who has around 40 years of experience as a guide. He was hilarious and very informative. And hear are some of the pictures of the places in the fort…
The Agra Fort
Agra Fort from Outside
Another Glimpse of the Mughals Artistic Beauty
Hear comes the entrance to the Rani Mahal... Seems like men werent allowed in those days to these places
Hear is the Rani mahal.. Contains two mahals again(For Winter and Summer)
No one can see the Queen!!
A Glimpse of Sheesh Mahal
This Mahal was a jail for ShahJahan during the rein of Aurangazeb ( his last 20 years). ShahJahan used to watch the tajmahal from here from a pice of glass and hence the name.
AGlimpse of Taj from Agra Fort
Wah Taj!! Wah!!
The palace for the Princess of Jahangir
A very beautiful place inside the fort... Seems it was Jodhabhai fav spot
Meena Bazar at Agra Fort
Diwan-E-Aam at Agra Fort
Another view of the great Agra Fort
That was the Agra fort. After watching and capturing the great agra fort both with our cameras and eyes we came out with out hearts filled with satisfaction. But something was awaiting us to wash out everything. Let me warn all the people who wanna go to agra, DO NOT PLAN TO GO TO AGRA ON FRIDAY. Because it is a holiday on friday for Taj. So we really got disappointed. And we started working on Plan C.
A new plan C as formulated. Going back without watching Taj was out of question. So we planned to go to Fathepur-Sikri that evening which is around 37 kms from Agra. Then we would come back to Agra that night and visit the Taj in the morning and will set out to see the Delhi and Mathura that day.
With this new plan, we requested our cab driver to stay with us that night for which he demanded extra 1000 bucks and with no other choice we agreed. Then we had a nice(just for Gideon) lunch after which we left for Fatherpur-Sikri.
Fathepur-Sikri was the best historical fort I have ever seen. It was a great place. If Agra fort is huge, this place is HUGE* HUGE. It was the capital of Akbar, before he moved to Agra. Further details about the fort along with the pictures....
There are so many palaces in Fathepur-Sikri, I forgot many of them.. this is one such place
Oops!! I forgot this one too...
Place where they used to keep all the food grains...
Its the entrance to jodhabhai's palace, Akbar's Fav Queen
The place where Jodhabai used to place her divine idols.... Now we too have an idol.. but devlish... ;)
Its the Jodhabhai's Kitchen.. Its pure Vegitarian.. If u can watch closely, the building is constructed with different architectures(Hindu, Persian,Christian etc..)
Its my fav place in the fort... Place where the Tansen used to sing
It was said that Tansen used to sit there as my friend has and used to sing. They used to fill the surrounding place with the rose water so that the vibrations would make the clouds to rain. By the way..water was a big issue at fathepur sikri which made akbar to leave this fort.
The Mariam's Palace... Akbar's second queen's palace...
Mariam is very fond of painting... Some of the paintings still exsist....
Akbar's Third Queens Palace.. She was a muslim
Some of the carvings inside mariam's place that were destroyed by Aurangazeb as Islam doesnt support the carvings of living beings....
Diwan-E-Khas... It is hear from where Akbar began his religion (Din-il-ahi)... and discussed all secret meatings with his navratan's ... 3 Navratan's used to sit on each corner
Panch Mahal... An awesome mahal... Jodhabhai used to perform suryanamaskars from the 5th floor...
Another view of Panch Mahal
Here is the treasury room in the fort... We wished we will find some... but got dissapointed ;)
And the place where hundreds of other illegal wives of Akbar used to stay
Buland Darwaz... Another part of the Fort... This is constructed for a babaji(salim) who blessed Akbar and Jodhabhai with a child. This is the highest door in Asia... so is the name
The place where babaji's tomb is... A sacred place...
Watch the bueaty.. Very similar to Mecca mosque..
Here lies the secret route to Lahore from where Anarkali was taken.
We too got the blessings from the saint
After seeing the spectacular fort and walking for around 3-4 hours, we were really tired. But none was ready to go back to hotel. We came there to move around and so we did do the same. We came back to Agra and went for shopping. Mind you guys, things are very costly here. Atleast bargin for 50-60% of the price people say. My sincear advice would be not to buy any costly things at Agra. But there is one famous thing without which you can't leave Agra and it is "AGRA ka PETA" Dont forget to get atleast 5-6 boxes. And mind you there are lots of shops which sell peta, so try for a genuine one.
So we roamed a lot on the roads of agra and when we could not walk further we took a hotel room very near to Taj mahal. By the way, hotel rooms are also very costly. But u can get a decent double room around 400-500 bucks. So we found one such room and got settled.
So that was day one. I slept hoping that atleast rest of the tour would go as planned. But something else was in store for us. Lets see what happened in the next post..
