Agra Fort

I didn't think we'd see anything as cool as the Taj Mahal on this trip, but Agra Fort gives it a run for its money. We're planning for an extra day in Agra on our next trip north so we can devote a full day to the Taj and a full day to the fort. The kids just can't take that much awesomeness in one day without moments like this:

Samuel napped through lunch, so we wrapped up some naan to take with us. Mmmm ... naan. Another reason to visit us in India.

By the time we got to the fort, the kids were definitely showing the effects of a long train ride, a late night, and several hours at the Taj Mahal. This makes my memory of the history and significance of the fort a little hazy. I know it's been in constant military use since the mid-1500s (maybe even before) and that a large chunk of the fort is off limits, because the current Indian army uses it for barracks and training.

There's a definite medieval feel, especially when you enter the main gate. The gate and the fort are connected by a long walkway with high walls, and it was easy to imagine archers ready to shoot or vats of boiling oil waiting to be dumped over attackers. We saw an enormous bird of prey (some kind of eagle maybe?) perched on one of the battlements, which added to the Lord of the Rings-esque atmosphere.

Amar Singh Gate

The fort is across the Yamuna River from the Taj Mahal, and on clear days there's a great view of the Taj from the walls of the fort. It was hazy when we were there (curse the North Indian winter!), so we could only see the Taj Mahal if we squinted our eyes and knew exactly where to look. I didn't bother to post our lousy pictures of that, but here's a cute one of Samuel looking out over the river.

The fort had a wet moat and a dry moat. I overheard a tour guide telling his group that the wet moat was stocked with crocodiles and the dry moat had tigers and elephants. I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds pretty exciting. The most dangerous wildlife we saw were the scores of monkeys that now inhabit the fort. Caroline and I saw one up on the battlements that I swear must have been 5 feet tall. John wanted to jump a barrier and climb up there, but I talked him out of it. Actually, I went a little hysterical and forbade any kind of questionable exploration. In John's mind, if there's a good reason to make something out of bounds you really should use more than a rope to block it off. A locked door prevents snooping. A rope is meant to be stepped over. I humbly but loudly disagree with his theory.

There were plenty of monkeys close up, too, but I was too busy trying to keep Samuel from provoking them to get any pictures. I think Caroline took this one.

The fort is really a walled city, with palaces, mosques, and even an underground labyrinth (off limits) that housed Emperor Akbar's 500-strong harem. 500 ... seriously? The most opulent part of the fort (that's open to tourists, anyway) is the part built by Shah Jahan, the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal. There's a lot of white marble with semi-precious stone inlay, which I guess he really liked, and beautiful arches everywhere you turn.

Carrie caught this shot ... I love it.

As if the fort weren't interesting enough, there's a tragic story that gives it even more mystique. Shah Jahan's son, Aurangzeb, usurped the throne and imprisoned his father here. Shah Jahan spent the last 8 years of his life gazing at the Taj Mahal from the fort. It's said that he died on this balcony, facing the tomb of his wife. Can't you just see an imprisoned emperor pacing this place?

It's interesting how beautiful these sections of the fort were. John mentioned that European castles he's toured that date to the same period are dark, dank fortresses. Agra Fort is a heavily fortified luxurious palace, that was probably a pretty comfortable place to live. It shows that the power, technology and artistry of the time were centered in Asia, not in the West.

The fort closes when the sun sets, and we were some of the last to leave. That gave us time for pictures like this (both taken by Caroline):

Don't these kids look adorable?

Well don't let them fool you! By this time they were absolute monsters, running around, crying at the drop of a hat, picking at each other ... auuuuugh!

It's my fault, though. We had them up super late the night before, and then we dragged them all over Agra for a good 10 hours. All things considered, I guess they weren't so bad. I don't know when I've been so relieved to have everyone in bed and asleep, though.

The next day they were back to their normal excellent-traveler selves, and it's a good thing, too. John called the night before to check on the status of our train back to Delhi. Eight hours delayed! That meant we wouldn't get to the airport in time to catch our flight back to Chennai. We did some frantic calling around and ended up hiring our driver from Delhi to come pick us up and take us to the airport ... a five-hour trip one way.

All ready for a long drive

The drive wasn't as horrendous as I was expecting it to be. Plus, Caroline got the added benefit of seeing more of the "real" India, and we ate some yummy dal makhani at a roadside kitchen. We got to the airport with plenty of time to catch the plane back to Chennai. It was good to be home.

Best buds

Evie, our social butterfly, has lots of friends, but her two best buddies are boys. Here are Evie and her friend Owen out for ice cream at Amethyst Cafe.

Taj Mahal

Warning: This post will be long.

It's amazing the difference a three-hour train ride can make. We went from the grimy chaos that is the Delhi train station to the spotless luxury that is the ITC Mughal Hotel in Agra. We splurged a bit on this stay, and I'm so glad we did. We easily fit everyone into one suite, which had comfy beds for all, a huge bath, a huger shower, fluffy robes, fresh flowers, a big flat-screen TV on which to watch Bollywood, and anything else you care to think of. They even provided pets.

Meet Natasha and Dino.

Guess which feature was everyone's favorite? Here are some clues:

Samuel preferred this bench, which he said was his motorcycle. The boy is obsessed, but that's a post for another day.

Looking at these photos again makes we want to go back, and not just for the massage chair. Agra was pretty incredible. We spent a very busy day touring the Taj Mahal and Agra's Red Fort, and we all agreed we could easily have spent another entire day doing the same thing.

India is trying to protect its national treasure from the effects of pollution, so it's illegal to drive within 200 meters of the Taj Mahal. This means that you have to walk a gauntlet of souvenir vendors and men who want to be your tour guide in order to get to the gates. It's quite the cultural experience. I mean that in a good way, actually.

This camel is patiently waiting to haul tourists to the east gate.

Because of a mix-up about tickets, we ended up having to walk from the east gate around to the south gate. This took us through some winding streets and past a group of not-very-bright men who were teasing one of the huge monkeys that leap from building to building over the narrow streets. Ask Caroline how I heroically jumped between her and the rabid beasts (the monkeys, not the men). Actually, all I did was put my arm in front of her and tell her when to run, but it did fulfill my duty as protector.

Inside the grounds, the first thing we saw was the Great Gate, which is pretty awesome all on its own. It's made of sandstone and white marble and is decorated with verses from the Koran. The calligraphy gets bigger the higher it is on the gate so that it looks uniform from below. The same trick is used on the Taj Mahal itself.

Shah Jahan and his architects were design geniuses. This entire complex is just beautiful, with stunning view after stunning view. Here's the first glimpse you get of the mausoleum itself, through the Great Gate.

The mausoleum is raised just enough that its background is always nothing but sky.

Here's the first view as you go through the gate.

There was a traffic jam just outside the Great Gate, because the sight of this gorgeous building is almost too much to take. You might think I'm being melodramatic, but no. It's breathtaking. If I don't admit that I had tears in my eyes, John will get on here and broadcast it anyway, so I admit it. This is one place that lives up to its hype.

Another reason for the traffic jam is that several hundred people are all trying to get pictures like these:

You have to have something to prove that you were actually there. Caroline kept tapping me and saying, "We're at the Taj Mahal!" The grounds are beautiful, too, and you can see the obsession with symmetry everywhere. There were tons of people, but it somehow didn't seem too overwhelming.

We got stopped several times so people could admire the kids. Caroline even has a new Indian pretend boyfriend! Some guy and a professional photographer kept bugging her until she finally agreed to snap a photo with him. Awkward. Irresistability runs in our family.

As you get close to the mausoleum, you have to either remove your shoes and leave them in a cubby or wear protective booties. Then you're allowed to get a close-up look at the Taj Mahal.

I had always assumed that the Taj Mahal was pure white, but that's not true. The white marble is actually inlaid with thousands of semi-precious stones in beautiful floral patterns.

Evie just loved the inlay. She spent some time looking for pink stones.

The carving and inlay is even more spectacular inside the tomb, but you're not allowed to take pictures and, let me tell you, they are deadly serious about this. A guy near us took out his cell phone, and the guard was on him in about half a second. The guard confiscated the phone and dragged the guy out of the tomb. So be warned.

The inside of the tomb has a carved marble screen surrounding the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor. Mumtaz Mahal was Shah Jahan's favorite wife and died during childbirth in 1631. He had the Taj Mahal complex built as a memorial to her, and she's buried right in the center of the building. Shah Jahan's cenotaph is off to one side (he died years later) and is the only thing that throws off the building's symmetry.

The central chamber and passages around it are lit with sunlight that comes through carved marble windows. Their design is simpler than those at Humayun's Tomb, but the symbolism of the spider's web is the same.

In case you're wondering, this photo's legal, since we were outside the central chamber.

The mausoleum is on a huge, raised marble platform, so after we saw the inner chambers we walked around the outside of the building. There's a decorative minaret at each corner of the platform.

There's a red sandstone mosque on the west side of the Taj Mahal, and a matching building (purpose unknown except for maintaining symmetry) on the east side. It's a working mosque, so the entire complex is closed on Fridays except to those attending prayers. File that away for when you come visit.

We spent so much time on the platform, that the kids started finding subtle ways to protest.

We didn't want to leave, though, without seeing the Taj Museum. Our trusty Lonely Planet guide instructed us not to miss it, and who are we to argue with Lonely Planet? Since we were getting new views of the Taj Mahal on our walk across the grounds to the museum, we had to take a few more pictures.

The museum was small but really cool. It had 17th-century architectural drawings of the complex, original paintings (including miniatures of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal), and these really cool celadon plates that were supposed to break or change color if they came into contact with poison. John waited for the guard to step out of the room before taking this illicit photo of a celadon plate.

... And he got busted by a security camera! Ha! Ha! The guard came running into the room and gave John quite the dirty look, pointing at the security camera like "gotcha!" We did manage to escape without having the camera confiscated or getting thrown out of the museum.

By this time, the kids were tired and we were all hungry, so we walked back to the car so we could head out for lunch. We shared the road with a couple of bulls, which is nothing remarkable in India. They were walking so slowly and peacefully that we were lulled into a sense of safety, and Evie nearly got trampled when they suddenly locked horns in a fight! Was it an episode of Animal Encounters? Nope. Just another day in India.

The train's at the station, ready to go ...

People have been telling us that there's nothing like traveling by train in India. I can now say that they're absolutely right. The good thing is that you can get just about anywhere by train. We had heard that it's a five-hour drive between Delhi and Agra, but just a three-hour train ride. Hiring a car and driver to make the trip costs infinitely more than train tickets do, even first-class tickets. So we bought train tickets. No problem.

The driver we'd been using in Delhi dropped us off at one of the main stations there, and we were immediately swallowed up in a mass of people. If you ever travel here by train, travel light or you'll be doomed. We fought our way through the crowds of coolies outside the station and through security, which was a bag scanner and a metal detector. Inside the station there were so many people we could barely move. This photo doesn't begin to to do it justice, because it was taken on the outskirts and after we had gotten our bearings.

This is taken over the sparsest section of the crowd. Most of the station had no spare space to speak of.

We stood for a bit trying to figure out where to go while pretending to look like we knew exactly what we were doing. Showing any kind of confusion or trepidation here will draw all kinds of unwanted help, most of it with a hefty price tag. We long ago learned that if you act like you know what you're doing, then everyone will think you do and will leave you alone to do it. We weren't entirely successful, though, because people kept walking by us and telling us our train was delayed for three hours. How did they know we were going to Agra? No idea.

There was a man at the station whose job seemed to be to try to herd the crowds of people in the right direction. He walked around waving a long bamboo stick and blowing a whistle. He'd use the stick to push people away from lines they weren't supposed to be in or windows that were closed ... at least I think that's what he was doing. It was hilarious! I've never seen anything like it. This people-herder passed our little group several times, and every time he did he gave us a quick glance and moved on, as if wondering what we thought we were doing.

We already had our tickets, so all we had to do was figure out which platform we had to be on and when. Our train wasn't showing up on any of the screens, though, so after making a few calls to see if there was any way out of it, John left us in a corner and joined the throngs in front of a window marked "enquiries." About 30 seconds later, our train showed up on the screen with the platform number and the information that it was, indeed, delayed for three hours.

Caroline was just about to go after John when he came back. We thought he'd seen the information on the screen, but no! The people-herder had seen him at the back of the line and very kindly shoved about a million people out of the way and ushered him right up to the window. Ha! I wish I had a photo of that guy.

So we had a three-hour wait on the train platform with about 5 million other people. Awesome. The kids actually did really well. They read or played games, and John occasionally took them on excursions to find chips and candy. They quickly gained doting fans among the other passengers.

I had to turn my brain off a little and deal with the fact that I wasn't going to keep the kids off that filthy floor for three hours. You'll be glad to know that no one picked up any dread diseases.

Speaking of dread diseases, I think the worst part of all this for me was the toilet issue. Not to worry, I won't go into too much detail. It took several swims through the masses of humanity to even find the restroom (I gave up and went back to the platform twice), and once I found it I almost wished I hadn't. I'm pretty sure it's the worst I've ever seen, and that's saying something.

The bathroom was, of course, as far away from our platform as it is possible to be, so I took several trips with kids right through the center of the crowds. The only other Westerners I saw were small groups of college-age backpackers. I was a little surprised, because we do know several families who regularly take the trains.

Here are our neighbors on the platform.

Johnny's expression just cracks me up in this one.

When the train finally arrived we had to battle crowds surging in all directions to find our car. Caroline and Evie caught the worst of this, for some reason. Evie proved again what a trooper she is, though, and simply kept hold of Carrie until they fought their way free. Here we are safely in our compartment, which wasn't half bad.

Honestly, once we were on the train, everything was dandy. We bought biryani and a deck of playing cards from the vendors who walk the train between stations. The kid who sold us the playing cards was hilarious. I ended up giving him about half of what he initially wanted for the cards, but he laughed through the whole negotiation. Caroline and I taught the kids to play War, and that kept them busy for quite a while. And there really was someone who wandered by occasionally, calling out "chai, chai, coffee, coffee!" So fun. Eventually, Evie and Johnny climbed to the upper bunks and slept until we finally arrived in Agra close to midnight.

And guess what? We're doing it again in March. We plan to take the train to Mysore over Johnny's spring break. It's going to be awesome.

Sweet dreams

Evie usually jumps out of bed at 7 a.m. every day then comes into my room to wake me. This morning she stayed in bed so long I started to worry that she was sick. When I checked on her, she said: "I was having a dream and I'm closing my eyes, but I can't get it to turn on again." Ha!

"In a gentle way, you can shake the world"

So ... it's been a while. I got called to be our church branch's Primary president, and I've spent the last two weeks trying to wrap my head around that. If anyone has advice on how best to handle a small, multilingual, multicultural Primary with not enough adult help, I'm all ears.

But back to Delhi! Our second full day was devoted to Gandhi -- and to the Delhi train station, but that's a whole post on its own.

First we visited Gandhi Smriti, where Gandhi spent his last 144 days and then was assassinated. The home has been turned into a fantastic museum, with displays about his life and works on the ground level and a bunch of cool interactive exhibits upstairs.

One of the rooms had small dioramas depicting scenes from Gandhi's life. Johnny's been learning about Indian history at school and was pretty excited to point out the Salt March and a scene showing Gandhi being thrown off a whites-only train during his time in South Africa. The kids acted out those scenes during a Gandhi Jayanti assembly at school.

My favorite part of the museum was the part of the house where Gandhi had been living. There are two rooms set up exactly the way they were when he lived there. One is a bedroom, and the other is his receiving area. Both are very simple.

This is the receiving room. To the left of the mattress is his small spinning wheel.

Bedroom ... just a bed

A display case shows some of his possessions, including one of two watches that are stopped at the time of his death and said to be his. The other watch is in another museum in Delhi, and no one really knows which was actually his.

This instrument is one of the interactive displays upstairs. The displays were all really interesting, but I probably would have enjoyed the experience more if we hadn't had a guide showing off all the bells and whistles. She had a hard time letting us just sit and watch the films or read the information. There was a great kids room, though.

weird Indian version of a marimba

There are footsteps leading from Gandhi's bedroom to the rear of the compound, where Gandhi walked on the evening of January 30, 1948, to address the crowd at a prayer meeting. He hadn't quite reached the platform where he was supposed to speak when a Hindu extremist ran forward and shot him.

There's a small monument at the exact spot of the assassination. Caroline mentioned that she always gets a strange feeling when she's standing at the very spot where something tragic occurred. I do, too. I suppose I feel a little too close. Daily life makes it easy to push away the tragic or the profound things of the world, but sometimes they smack you in the face. India is full of places, people and things that make it impossible to ignore the world around you.

There's a huge mural showing scenes from Gandhi's life across the garden from the monument.

Gandhi is associated with khadi, which is the spinning of yarn and weaving of fabrics for self-sufficiency. He asked his wife to teach him to spin and weave, and he practiced it every day for much of his later life. Spinning and weaving became symbols of India's independence movement, because the return to traditional textiles allowed for boycotting British cloth. At Gandhi Smriti there are demonstrations of spinning, winding, weaving, and sewing.

Caroline said watching this guy made her appreciate her sewing machine's bobbin winder. :) That bright orange color is used to make the clothing worn by some Hindu priests and pilgrims.

After a quick stop at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in somewhere, Delhi, (the food was delicious ... and the kids had dal makhani, of course) we went on to Raj Ghat, where Gandhi was cremated. We had been told that this would be a peaceful, even spiritual experience. Well ... here's what we encountered.

There were THOUSANDS of people at Raj Ghat ... and 99 percent of them were school kids. Peaceful? No. Spiritual? Well, there were moments, I suppose.

As usual, our kids were mobbed by admiring, camera-toting crowds. I turned the camera on one group.

at least they're friendly!

Despite the crowds, Raj Ghat really did have a solemn feel once we had removed our shoes and walked into the memorial. There's an eternal flame at the site, and workers keep incense burning in front of the platform.

This day left me resolved to learn more about Gandhi. I titled this post "In a gentle way, you can shake the world," a famous quotation of Gandhi's, because I couldn't help wondering at the influence this one man had over the fate of his own people and of people around the world. It's pretty inspiring.