We got up and had breakfast, then headed to the railway station for the train to Agra. We booked on the Gatimaan Express, which is targeted at people visiting the Taj, it is a nonstop high speed train to Agra. It leaves at 8:10am and the return train back to Delhi leaves at 5:50pm.
The first problem we had was figuring out where to wait. Finding the correct platform was no problem, but the platforms are immense. It was probably close to half a mile long. We were in coach C1, but had no idea where C1 would stop. There were digital signs that were supposed to show the position of the coaches but they were all broken or turned off. While we were trying to figure it out, the train arrived.
This is actually a picture of the train arriving in Agra, I didn’t get a pic in Delhi, but it was the same train. It didn’t look very high speed to us. The order of the cars was confusing, we saw a C5, then E2, eventually we just jumped on and made our way through the cars on board until we found it. It was the first car. We had reserved seats so we didn’t have to worry about not finding a seat.
We heard they served refreshments, but we didn’t expect a full meal.
The train was definitely fast compared to the Sri Lankan trains, it probably averaged 100kph (~60mph). We arrived at Agra on time at 9:50am. There was the usual crowd of taxis and touts, actually probably more than usual. One nice thing they have at some of the major transit points is prepaid taxis where the fair is set by the government. You wait in line and pay at a booth run by the police, then they give you a ticket which you give to the driver when he drops you off. No negotiation, or dealing with other problems. A “guide” tried to jump in the taxi with us, but we made him get out.
We finally got dropped at or near the Taj Mahal complex, they keep traffic at least 500m away to reduce noise and pollution. We walked through the park area to get to the foreigner ticket booth. It was 1000 rupees each, and it included at bottle of water and shoe covers. Some guy said it also included a free guide and tried to join us, but we’d never heard of that so we declined.
We got to go into the foreigner line, which by passed the huge locals line. They let Yanmei through right away, but when he scanned my ticket it “failed”. I thought I was going to have to go back to the ticket offices. A couple of other agents tried their scanners and it said “verified”, but my agent didn’t want to listen for some reason. Eventually they let me through.
Phew. I read just before we left for the train that the Taj Mahal was being cleaned and they recommended waiting until 2019 to visit. I was worried the whole thing would be covered in scaffolding, but luckily that wasn’t the case. The main dome is slightly browner than the minarets which have already been cleaned.
It was crowded with people, but the place is so huge it didn’t feel too bad. I was surprised how many locals there were, I was expecting mostly tourists, but it was 99% locals. It is interesting, you don’t see a lot of Egyptians visiting the pyramids for example. Maybe many of them were coming from other regions of India.
One of the outlying buildings was being cleaned, the other was done.
Line to go inside. We had to wear the shoe covers or go barefoot here.
After looking around for a while, we headed back to the surrounding garden and Yanmei found a bench in the shade for us to sit. It was pretty hot and we didn’t want to face the chaos outside yet. As we were sitting on the bench we became a mini attraction ourselves. People asked to take pictures with us, and others were trying to subtly take selfies with us in the background.
Later we stopped at the restrooms.
People taking silly perspective shots.
Finally we left from the South Gate. I was expecting a mass of souvenir and gift shops, etc.. There were a lot of shops but they were all closed. It was Sunday, but the Taj Mahal itself is closed on Fridays and I expected the shops would only be closed Fridays. I didn’t care about the shops, but we were hungry and most of the restaurants were closed too. A guy from a barber shop eventually pointed us to an open cafe where we had lunch. I kind of regretted not going back to the barber for a haircut. I kind of need one since it has been two months, and getting a haircut in Agra, India would be a once in a lifetime experience. We had time because we felt too tired to visit the Agra fort, so we just needed to wait until our train back.
We went to the train station early so we had plenty of time to look around. There were a lot of monkeys hanging around, most in the girders above the platform. One funny scene was Yanmei was sitting on a bench, I was standing about 3 feet away chatting, meanwhile a man was walking past us down the platform with his son, about 3-4 years old. The boy was holding his father’s hand and with his other hand he had a bag of chips. A monkey jumped down, ran between Yanmei and I, came up behind in the boy, snatched the bag of chips, and then scampered up into the girders, leaving the kid with a shocked look and us grinning.
Anyway the train came on time and we got back on for the ride back. We had the same seats and it was the same train. Yanmei found a piece of garbage she left on the way down still in the seat back pocket. It rained a bit on the way back, it we made it.
David
