Agra Vation - No! Immodium to the rescue

I had had several nights with no sleep, first up early for tigertown, then Linda DBiing, nw I've got it and I am up at 5.00am for bird watching in Bharatpur, clenched cheeks I spend two hours looking at red cheeked bulbuls, owls, flycatchers, storks, mynahs, kingfishers etc. We had guides and a peddle rickshaw for the 10 km round trip. The rickshaw boys were having a tough time. No decent monsoon for 5 years and the lakes were so low that all the migrating birds went elsewhere. They said 4000 down to 400 varietys around. Consequently, the work had dropped right off. They all turn up at first light and have to enter a lottery to see who is first to get work if any one turns up. They don't get paid by the park only by the visitors. So back for breakfast with Lin. who declined the trip and off to Agra.

 

This was a very different place, back to poverty and trained squads of shock hawkers and beggars as you brave the pedestrian only road to the tomb.  You also drive the 500m before the pedestrian bit in electric buses for the environment. The Taj is set in a beautiful place along side the river with the town downstream. It was pretty crowded and again Mel was right, pickpockets were at work, especially at a crowded choke point where you actually enter the Taj. Again we had a first class lunch in the Shearaton, lovely grub, beautifully presented.

 

From there we went to the Red Fort. I think this was better than the Taj. It is a world heritage site, a smashing set of buidings with lots of history well presented. Our guide was CB, a retired judge. Pretty knowledgable, lots of anecdotes, but difficult to understand. Shah Jahan buit the Taj to bury his missus in, and it was assumed beacause she was buried in the centre and symmetry was key, that he would have another tomb, perhaps across the river. However in a story of soap opera proportions, the youngest son, murdered his 2 elder prothers and emprisoned Dad in the Red Fort so he could take over - bit like Gordon Brown! The palace in the Red Fort was all marble like the Taj and Shah Jahan was kept in a small part where he ould see the Taj in the distance. When he finally died he was buried in the Taj, so we will never really know about his tomb.

We were scheduled to visit a shop on the way to the PoW, but the whole coached rebelled and refused to get off - even the super shoppers were over shopped!