Tuesday, November 22, 2005
I arrived in Jaipur, the pick city, just about two hours ago by bus from Agra. Uneventful ride, just long, at 5 hours. We stopped on the way at a market for food - I had a plate of I don't really know what, but it was good, and the first thing I'd eaten today. I intend to have a very good meal at one of the highly recommended restaurants tonight.
I spent the morning in Agra, visiting the Taj Mahal. I wanted to approach it slowly, and so went to the Red Fort yesterday and saw it off in the distance. I got up early this morning - it is recommended that the Taj is especially beautiful in the sunrise, with the added benefit of few tourists there at that hour. Well, FEWER tourists, anyway.
The admission is expensive, by Indian standards - Rs.750, about $15, and they really check you out very thoroughly. I had to go back to leave my calculator in their locker.
But the Taj. It really is spectacular. And there are reflecting pools that are like mirrors in the morning, doubling the beauty of the teardrop domes. Later in the day the surface of the pool becomes rippled, and even later there are little fountains playing so the whole reflection idea disappears. Just before the sun begins to shine on the Taj it looks transparent. Then the sun highlights the features and the towers. Quite spectacular. I took pictures, and pictures of people taking pictures. Everyone seems to want a picture of themselves grinning at a camera with the Taj behind them. Somehow to me it seems inappropriate - the Taj itself is the thing worth recording and it is, after all, a holy place, a mosaleum and memorial to a beautiful woman by a man who is also buried there beside her.
I spent the morning in Agra, visiting the Taj Mahal. I wanted to approach it slowly, and so went to the Red Fort yesterday and saw it off in the distance. I got up early this morning - it is recommended that the Taj is especially beautiful in the sunrise, with the added benefit of few tourists there at that hour. Well, FEWER tourists, anyway.
The admission is expensive, by Indian standards - Rs.750, about $15, and they really check you out very thoroughly. I had to go back to leave my calculator in their locker.
But the Taj. It really is spectacular. And there are reflecting pools that are like mirrors in the morning, doubling the beauty of the teardrop domes. Later in the day the surface of the pool becomes rippled, and even later there are little fountains playing so the whole reflection idea disappears. Just before the sun begins to shine on the Taj it looks transparent. Then the sun highlights the features and the towers. Quite spectacular. I took pictures, and pictures of people taking pictures. Everyone seems to want a picture of themselves grinning at a camera with the Taj behind them. Somehow to me it seems inappropriate - the Taj itself is the thing worth recording and it is, after all, a holy place, a mosaleum and memorial to a beautiful woman by a man who is also buried there beside her.
