Trip to India: Agra/Taj Mahal

Happy New Year!!!

Off we go to Agra and Taj Mahal. Plan is to get to the hotel and freshen up and then go see the Taj Mahal for a few hours.

The Radisson Agra had HUUUGE rooms, our King Bed room had the bed, a full size table and still had room for probably another King Bed. The kids room had two twin beds and the current blocked off a space that was basically an enclosed balcony.

We quickly freshened up and headed to Taj Mahal. Same thing as Red Fort, the instance you step out of the Bus "guides" start hitting you up for a guided tour "ONLY 500 rupees". You tell them "No", you bark at them, you tell them to get bent, and they don't go away. I finally told the one who wouldn't go away that he was giving India and its people a bad name and he needed to leave us alone. Seemed to work.

Prepaid for the tickets this time as the Red Fort was a madhouse and so was the Taj Mahal. We got our tickets scanned and went through a pretty thorough security check. I would say on par with a TSA patdown.

We follow the crowd and turn the corner and......it's a courtyard. We get to the middle and turn right and....it's a bunch of hawkers selling tchotchkes. We finally ge to the end of the walkway and there it is

Once you see it, you get why people come from far and wide to see it. As you get closer and closer you realize the size and complexity it took to make it. When you get right next to it you can see the painstaking work of the hand carved decorations in the marble slabs.