Agra Fort

Agra Fort was the last new place to visit in Agra (we planned to return to Taj Mahal, but it was not new anymore). It is big and also more expensive again, but with acceptable price.

We have spent there a lot of time - most of it just sitting in garden and relaxing. Little squirrels were everywhere around us.

Resting family.

Taj Mahal from Agra Fort was not visible well. And it is not very far.

These cute squirrels were everywhere. We could see them in every garden in India. Zuzka was not fascinated by them as much as I was.

Agra

Agra is ugly city. It us worse than Aurangabad. It is dirty and it looks terrible. Only those old buildings make it worth of visit. We have seen other not very clean places, but they were nice and distinctive.

I took a few photos of ordinary people and streets so you can make your judgement.

Street with shops next to Taj Mahal - its South gate is visible at the end of it.

But further from Taj Mahal, we were not afraid to go this way because our guide (and his boss) were with us.

Washing men near river. I did not expect anything from this photo as it was taken from car on bridge. So I just cropped out bridge construction.

Following photos were taken from car.

Saree shop

We did not buy a lot of stuff in India. But one of them, planned beforehand, was a saree, preferably red one.

So we asked driver to show us some place and he took us to rather good shop. After some time Zuzka selected one. Shop assistant was nice, he studied in Russia and he has been to Poland (he presented us his knowledge of Polish) and I suspect he understood most of what we discussed.

Saree was not cheap, but we were afraid they will ask 3 times more, so we were nicely surprised. Still we played it as we were not happy with price. So shop assistant added also blouse from matching material and petticoat, but it was probably part of deal since beginning, just not mentioned, I guess.

As we wanted to pay interesting situation happened. I could not find 1000 Rs notes and I could not remember where I put them. It was strange as we exchanged them in the morning. I was not sure if I left them in guest house or what happened. So we paid in dollars. I wish I knew what shop assistant thought about us when I was desperately trying to find money :-)

(I took a few photos in shop, but they were with flash and they are not very good, so I am going to show another photo from evening.

Taj Mahal from other bank

As we were finished we asked driver to get us to other bank of river near to Taj Mahal (to take sunset pictures). He took us to place bellow Agra Fort where a) Taj Mahal was far away; b) sun was behind us and not behind; c) we had photo from this direction. So I tried to explain where we want to go, he told me it is not possible, there are no roads. So I tried to explain what photo I would like to have and he understood this time.

Sun was already quite low, he wanted to go through bridge we went in other direction before, but now he told us it is not possible, because bridge is closed for Hindus. What?

We have insisted on going there so he finally managed to get there (I do not remember if we used that bridge or different one). As we got there we needed to go about 500m, then we got to sand bank. Not very funny for Zuzka in saree. Everybody around looked at her and commented "Beautiful saree".

Taj Mahal was there, nicely visible, but no sun. It was probably hidden in thick smog. (I guess we got there before sun set). So instead of taking photos of Taj Mahal with setting sun I was taking photos of Zuzka in saree with Taj Mahal. But mostly with her camera. They were not very good because of getting dark. And I had to delete mine due to error in 8GB CF I have bought and photo bank refused to copy. So only panorama of Taj from this side.

Back at Col. Lamba's home stay

After our return to to guest house we had fantastic dinner our hosts prepared for us. The best meal we had in India.

Later I have noticed that coughing and sore throat I thought was caused by dusty city still bothers me. Hopefully my Scotch Whisky can help me with that and I will be OK tomorrow.