After the Holi excitement had died down in Mathura late in the afternoon, we returned to Agra.
Next day we took a taxi out to Fatehpur Sikri, an ancient fortified temple and palace complex. It was developed initially as the Mughal capital about 500 years ago by Emperor Akbar the great. It served as the capital from 1571 until 1585 when military campaigns took the emperor out to the Pubjab, and the place was abandoned around 1610. It seems a ridiculous effort to build such a city for such a short lifetime. As usual it took us about twice as long as the guide books suggested, and we could easily have spent longer, but we had a second destination – Keoladeo, another half an hour up the road.
Keoladeo, formerly known as Bharatpur bird sanctuary, encompasses almost 30 square km of forests and wetlands. It is famed for its bird life. We arrived in the heat of the day, hired a nature guide and a couple of cycle rickshaw pedallers and headed off down the track. As expected there were lots of birds. The abundance of bird life included a pair of the endangered black headed storks (only about 18 pairs left in the wild in the subcontinent – the rest in Sri Lanka).
Next day we took a Tuk Tuk out to Akbar the Great’s tomb, Sikandra, about 9 km out of the centre of Agra. Here there is a vast square walled garden (~50 Ha) with huge gates north, south, east and west, and the 105 m square tomb building in the centre. It is rated as a Mughal architectural masterpiece. It was built by Akbar’s son after Akbar’s death between 1605 and 1613.
As usual we took twice as long as the guide book says, but we enjoyed exploring the place. All the gates and the main tomb building are elaborately decorated, but the actual crypt where Akbar the Great resides is totally undecorated. I guess when you are so great, the lack of decoration makes a more powerful statement.
Returning from Sikandra, we got the Tuk Tuk driver to drop us near the Taj Mahal east gate, where there was a Nature park that we wanted to explore. It turned out to be rather nice, with pleasant paths through woodlands, lots of birds, and some nice views of the Taj. We walked back to the hotel. The first part was an interesting meander through back streets. Lots of small shops, public water pumps (these are installed every 100 m or so in all the towns – the locals lack piped water and so use these to fill their water containers, do their washing etc), piles of cow patties, potholes you’d need a ladder to climb out of … a very cultural experience.
In the morning we took a dawn walk to the Taj Nature Park, bordering the grounds of the Taj Mahal for photos of the dawn light. We had to talk persuasively at the gate – although the guide books say it opens at 6:30 the people at the gate said 7 am, though there was some difficulty because they spoke no English and we spoke no Hindi. We persisted and eventually they let us in. Dawn was very pretty, though the thick fug of persistent smog did dilute the sunlight on the horizon.
Then it was back to the hotel to pack ready for the pick-up for the drive to the airport for our flight to Khajuraho. What we did not realise was that Agra was a joint military/civilian airport. We got to the external gate to the airport and had endless paperwork, passport and ticket inspections etc and then had to wait for an Air India representative to come and escort us to the terminal building. There we went through a security check and x-rays to get into the terminal. We checked our bags and then had a long wait (fortuitously we had left in very good time… I wouldn’t want to be running late – it took half an hour to get to the terminal building from arriving at the outside gate). And then we had to go through a second security screen with x- rays etc… military and civilian obviously don’t work together. No photos of the airport… the military had lots of no camera signs.
As usual there are more pictures at https://photos.app.goo.gl/1OasXESBcbv4rF8w1
Enjoy.