| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 07 February 2005 |
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I asked about this and Mark explained that it was so chosen
by the 1921 Seven Wonders Conference that met in Florence, Italy, and has
remained on their Top Seven list every year since but one. Mark also
said, It is also world-famous as a tribute to excess and wealth. As a
tribute to beauty that will last the ages it is second in India only to the
works of Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematician.
Well, we came out of the Taj. We walked back along the reflecting
pool, trying occasionally to take pictures. There were good photo points,
but there were always queues of people waiting to take pictures there.
Someone wanted to open a fenced-off area for Mark to take pictures from. No
doubt it was for baksheesh. Mark refused.
As we were leaving, Mark got a look at an Indian chipmunk. At least he
thought it was a chipmunk. It had the markings of a chipmunk, the tail of a
squirrel, and a size somewhere in between.
The Taj is near the juncture of two rivers whose names mean stop and
go. They feed the fountains which Mark thinks the guide said had run
continuously since the Taj was built.
Just as Delhi had a Red Fort, so too did Agra, built by Akbar the great
Moghul emperor. When he was just twenty-three years old, he ordered the
fort built. That was in 1565 and the high walls of the fort were build of
red sandstone. Three years earlier Akbar had started his conquest of
northern India. Akbar won the loyalty of the people with a carrot and a
stick. The carrot was tolerance for Hinduism; the stick was military force.
Akbar avoided making enemies by not insisting on conversion to Islam.
It took three or four thousand workers eight years to build the massive
walls. The walls are supposed to be so well constructed that no hair can go
into one of the joints. The buildings inside the fort were changed many
times since then, but the walls are still intact. The walls go up as much
as seventy feet and the perimeter makes a curve one and a half miles long.
It seems larger than the Red Fort in Delhi, but parts of this fort are
reserved for army use.
The inside includes the Pearl Mosque (Moti Masjid). It was built from
1646 to 1653. It was also closed for renovation (Luck of Leeper, but Evelyn
couldn't have gone in anyway). The fort affords a nice view of the Taj, but
of course that was the plan when the Taj was built. There was more
sandstone work, more inlaid work, and so on. They are restoring some of the
buildings with a new coat of plaster and trying to fix up the gardens, but
it is difficult with as little money as is probably available. (They are
also building a new, wider bridge across the Yamuna that they've been
working on for six or seven years and it looks only half done. Evelyn
figures they'll finish the new international airport in Agra before either
of them. The tourists will then fly directly to Agra instead of day-
tripping from Delhi. It will probably be real hell then.)
One of the women on the day tour was from south India and she was
fascinated by Mark's palmtop computer. This was the first day he was using
it to make notes and both she and he son with whom she was traveling were
fascinated to see the new technology. Even the guide, an old dark-skinned
Indian man, started addressing his lecture directly to Mark. It may be he
figured the rich American could tip best. On the other hand, no one seems
to tip the guides on these tours anyway.
Both here and in Delhi the guides told us wherever we see that
something has been plucked out of the wall, it had been a jewel before,
almost always a diamond or a ruby. Mark thinks it makes for a better story,
but he is not sure he believes that there was nothing semi-precious that was
since stolen. There may be some exaggeration to tell us of the great and
regal past which might have been a little less great and regal than people
want to imagine.
After the tour of the fort, the rest of the tour was going to crafts
places. We split off and hired a cycle-rickshaw for Rs15 to go back to our
hotel. As we were riding, the rickshaw driver's brother came along in a
cycle-rickshaw and offered to take one of us, still for the same price.
(This was for their benefit, since there was a fair amount of uphill
pedaling.) We hesitated, but finally agreed on the theory that if they
started going in very different directions, we could always jump out. We
had them stop at the Agra Fort railway station (not the same as the Agra
Cantonment railway station we had started from) and we reserved our places
for the ride to Jaipur at 6:10 AM Saturday. That was pretty painless. It
supposed is a two-step process, one to get the reservation and one to get
the ticket, but that seems to have been collapsed into one. We got a
reservation slip to fill out, got the train number for it from a sign
painted on the wall (we guess schedules don't change very often), filled in
the form, went to the window, and paid and got our tickets (Rs236 each for
first class for 208 kilometers including a Rs15 reservation charge and a
Rs15 service charge) in about ten minutes. This was much faster than the
Lonely Planet guide indicated. (It was also about 30% more expensive, but
we had heard that Indian railways had raised their rates in an attempt to
lose less money--it is heavily subsidized by the government.) On the back
of the ticket is an inspirational quote from Gandhi and a request that
family and friends not come to see you off because it makes the stations and
platforms too chaotic.
Then we continued on back to the hotel. It was very slow. Evelyn said
she had never seen such lethargic rickshaw drivers.
You have children? we were asked.
No children.
The rickshaw driver said, I have five children. One with polio. You
know polio?
Somehow we knew this was not going to be an easy ride.
You want to see craft shop.
No.
Craft shop has many nice things.
No room in our luggage.
If I take you to see craft shop, I make Rs20. Just look around. Five
minutes. You don't have to buy.
We said we did not want to go, but we were trapped in the rickshaws and
they kept wheedling. Eventually we said we would go for five minutes.
(Evelyn suspects the reason for putting us in two rickshaws was so that when
they started pestering us to go to this shop, we would be unable to discuss
it with each other or help each other out. Divide and conquer, in other
words.) So we went. And we didn't buy. Mark used the time to good
advantage. There were paintings of Hindu dieties and he had the clerk give
him a short lecture on Hindu deities and historical people.
Then back in the rickshaw.
Just one more store.
No, Mark responded.
One more, you don't have to buy.
NO! I will not get up from my seat until I see Sunrise Hotel. I do
not rise until Sunrise.
Just one more....
I am being kidnapped.
It took a bit of persuading, but we got back to our hotel. So Mark
started to pay the Rs15. Only 15? the driver asked, as if he didn't
remember the price he'd asked for. FIFTEEN! He paid the driver. All in
all, probably a typical Agra experience. Evelyn had read a story in the
Lonely Planet guide about somebody who got sick in India and told a rickshaw
driver he needed a doctor desperately. The driver told him to get in and
drove at high speed to a factory. When the passenger protested (feebly), he
was assured that a doctor did work there! (The details may not be exactly
right, but we believe the story. It could easily happen in Agra, where the
Euro-tourist and the donkey are here to be used. That may be a bit of an
over-statement, but we bet people who have been to Agra will know what he
means.) We hope Jaipur will be better but we don't have high hopes.
We got back to the room, told the Sikhs we did not want to go into the
shop right then, and went inside. There we could not get the air
conditioner on. Also, the room had not been made up, but we didn't know if
this was standard or not for this hotel. (During our entire stay the room
was not made up. That did not bother us much, but we did have to find a
bellhop to get toilet paper which had run out that morning. Toilet paper
comes only on very small rolls, so it runs out quickly. And having the
wastebaskets emptied would have been nice. At least there is a wastebasket.
In most public restrooms there doesn't seem to be one. This can at times be
a problem for women. The hotel also puts moth balls on top of each drain.
Now we doubt that moths in drains are a big problem, so we wonder why they
do this.)
After about half an hour somebody showed up to look at the air
conditioner. After about five minutes he left and returned with a new
stabilizer. There is no night stand on Mark's side of the bed. There is a
stabilizer. We're not sure exactly what it does, but it is a big metal
box the size of a bread box with a red button and an electric gauge on the
front. The air conditioner plugs into it and it plugs into the wall. It
has two big silver grab-bars on the top. It must weigh forty pounds
(eighteen kilograms). Anyway, after about another five minutes the guy
brought someone else in to work on the stabilizer. He stripped wires, made
a few nice sparks, and then declared that the stabilizer would have to be
replaced. He took it out. A few minutes later he was back with a new
stabilizer and proceeded to install it. This took about another five
minutes. As he left, the air conditioner ran. Of course, at the next
brown-out which was just a few minutes later, it started acting flaky again.
It seems to go out and come back for no apparent reason, though at least
partly connected to when Agra has brown-outs, which is two or three times a
night.
Hotel rules here are different from the United States as well.
Apparently you can be evicted at any time for any reason (or no reason!).
And of course, there are interminable forms with passport numbers, visa
numbers, etc.
But the strangest thing may be Agra's version of trickle-down
economics--other less complimentary descriptions would also be accurate.
Evelyn thinks it's worse here than in Varanasi, but that may be just her
impression. Moona arranges an auto-rickshaw for a certain amount. He keeps
some (30%?--Evelyn thinks that's what one driver said) and gives the driver
the rest. The driver then takes us around and suggests a store to shop in.
If we go in, he gets Rs20. Somehow everyone is paying everyone else.
Unfortunately, India doesn't seem as accessible at night as Southeast
Asia was. There, we could walk out our hotel door at 8 PM and people were
walking around, stores were open, etc. Here the hotels are all isolated
from the street, surrounded by fences and guards, and you can't just stroll.
(Even during the day, it's hard just to stroll.) Then again, we're getting
old and probably need our evenings to rest up.
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| Today was our day to pick up the sights we hadn't
seen yesterday. We had breakfast at about 8:30 AM, then arranged for an
auto-rickshaw to the far side of the river. We asked Moona what it should
cost to cross the river and see what is on the other side. (There are some
interesting sites to see, mostly tombs.) Moona said he would arrange it and
it would cost about Rs150, and would take about five or six hours. Moona
said we would pay him when it was over, and not to pay the driver anything
because the driver would try to cheat us. (We wondered how big Moona's cut
would be. |
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