Agra – The city of Taj Mahal

 

I had a chance to spend one day at Agra and I jumped at the thought of visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world! I reached Agra Cantonment at around 10am. Straight away I headed to the Pre-paid rickshaws booth outside the railway station. It is manned by a police man so no worries. I choose the option of 4 hours rickshaw and 3 places to visit… The Taj, Agra fort and market. It was about Rs. 200 which I felt is very good deal.

Our Rick headed directly to the Taj Mahal. On reaching at the entrance gate and buying the entrance ticket (~ Rs.25/- for Indian nationals) we were surrounded by many guides. Finally we decided to hire one for 100 bucks. Later we came to conclusion that it was worth having a guide.

Our guide showed us multiple optical illusions and provided a lot of interesting information about Taj. I would love to share them with you :)

As soon as you enter the main gate you will get the first glimpse of Taj. I was overwhelmed by it, to say the least. In this entrance dome, stand at the centre, I think there is some kind of mark there. From this point look at Taj and move towards it, as you move the Taj seems to grow in size and as you move back to original position it shrinks back. This is the first illusion that our guide showed us! Check out the photo below.

Taj was designed as per the description of heaven in holy Koran. Made of various rare kinds of marbles and precious stones it must have been one of the greatest monument of its time. It is symmetric in every aspect, from all sides it is exactly same.

It has 16 gardens 8 on each side, 53 fountains.. our guide told us that it indicates the year of Taj’s construction – 1653 (16 gardens and 53 fountains). On the entrance door there are 22 smaller domes signifying 22 years that took to build this enormous monument.

Each door has inscription of holy words from Koran. These words are not painted but carved in white marble and then exactly same shaped black marble is fitted in it. As a matter of fact this is true for all designs. The size of the words increases gradually from bottom to the top in such a way that it appears to be same sized from below and hence easy to read. Another example of well thought craftsmanship and optical illusion!

From the back side of Taj one can see the flowing Yamuna river. We were informed that emperor Shahajahan had marked a site right across the river to build exactly the same Taj mahal but with black marble! I cannot imagine the magnitude of wonder it would have been if these twin Taj were in existence today. You can see the site marked even today (pic above)

Our guide helped us in clicking this excellent reflection of Taj.

When to visit 
September - March

What to shop
Petha – a sweet made up of White Pumpkin or Ash Gourd. (Panchhi (bird in hindi) Petha is apparently famous in Agra). You can find many flavours, must try.

Jaipur – The pink city

If you have read my wish list of the places to visit, Jaipur was one of it. And I managed to plan a trip in the month of September. It was a four days tour and I also visited the Agra for a day. More about Agra in another post.

In Jaipur I stayed at The Palms Hotel. The hotel is located in good area of the city very close to the Raj Mandir – A well known cinema theatre. The hotel was not exactly the best one. The service was not as expected. You may want to check the review at this site.

I reached Jaipur at around noon and after a brief nap was as good as new. Soon I was out to explore the place. After a brief walk I was in front of the much talked about theatre – The Raj Mandir.  I was advised by a good friend to check out this theatre and so I went ahead and booked tickets for Dabangg. Once inside I was impressed by the Raj Mandir, one has to consider the fact that this theatre was built much before the concept of multiplexes was introduced in India. The chandeliers, the decorative pieces, the lightings… all of this really made it worth the view.

Next day we proceeded for site seeing and for that purpose booked a cab for the day. I think it was good deal at 1.2k for an AC indica. Our first stop was at the Hawa Mahal. The structure is right on the main road. Though our driver said there is nothing inside, we went in and climbed till the top floor. One can see the Jantar-Mantar from Hawa Mahal.

The next stop was at Jantar-Mantar. This huge astronomy observatory was built under the regime of Maharaja Jai Singh II between 1727 and 1734. One of the Yantra (Instrument), Brihat Samrat Yantra, here works on the principle of sundial and can give time to the accuracy of 2 seconds! You may want to know more about it please check the Wikipedia link.

Amer or Amber fort is about 12 km from Jaipur. Out of that 3-4 km stretch of road is not very good but at the time the repair work is in progress so it should be ok in another 3 months or so. Apart from that the drive was quite good.

I can only wonder what they might be cooking in this huge vessel.

  

On our way back we stopped at the Jal Mahal. I am told that till some days back the visitors could go inside by boats however now that service is no more available. The view of Jal Mahal at the dusk was awesome.

As the day was coming to end we decided to do some shopping. Please bear in mind that many shops here will declare that they are the government shops. However I have learnt (the hard way) that apparently government gives the contracts to the shops to sell the local articles but they are not 100% govt. shops. The prices are on higher sides. For example the shop right in front of Jal Mahal, it is a huge establishment which sells gift articles, jewellery, sarees, dress materials etc. But the prices are quite high. I guess the travel agents prefer it for the commission they get from the owners. Anyway I found that the better way to shop is to check at least 3-4 shops before deciding the right place.

The following day we went to the city all by ourselves by the autorikshaws which are very easily available. We enjoyed the shopping and also viewed a show at the Birla Planetarium. We did some experiment with food and tried our hands at the daal-baati-churma. Must tell you that it is such a wholesome meal that even after 4 hours I was feeling full :)

However I think I would visit Jaipur one more time to check out the places after studying them in more details. Also I have missed out some sites like the Nahargarh fort, Jaigarh fort and Gaitore. They certainly call for another trip.

Things to consider
Study about the place and its custom. At Albert hall museum one can buy tickets for 5 other places at concessional rate. This not only saves money but also saves time which otherwise would be spent in standing in queues.

I would advise to take a guide at places like Jantar-Mantar. I could not get good guide at Amer fort but if you could get some one, please try it. And fianally check out the links below for more information about the beautiful Jaipur.
http://www.rajasthantourism.gov.in/Destinations/Jaipur/AboutJaipur.aspx
Links courtesy Mr. Shiv (Post about wish list)
http://www.jaipurtravel.com/about_jaipur.htm
http://www.jaipur.org.uk/

What to eat
Daal Baati Churma, Malpova at Rawaat Sweets

When to visit
October - February

What to shop
Bandhani dresses, Traditional Sarees, Laakh jewellery (Bangles) at Chhoti Chopdi and Badi Chopdi, The puppets

Minimum stay duration
3 days

Jejuri, Narayangaon and Balaji

It has been long time that my family wanted to visit the Khandoba of Jejuri, Datta mandir of Narayangaon and the Balaji temple. I had been to Balaji temple last year and I was quite impressed by the cleanliness and the automosphere of the location. When I say balaji temple I mean the one which is near to Pune. With the help of google and few friends we chalked out the path so as to cover all these places in one go!

 

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We started at around 9:30 in the morning. Our first stop was at Balaji temple. This temple is developed and managed by Venkateshwara Hatcheries. It is located at a very scenic place. Everything is well managed and it is said to be the replica of the Balaji temple of Tirupati. I have not been there so I cannot judge. We reached there at around 11am. After darshan we decided to have our lunch at the temple itself. It consisted of rice and sambhar and was very well prepared.

Then we started for the Narayangaon. It is famous for its Datta Mandir. The temple seems to be renovated and is right on the main road passing through the village. You have to be lucky to find the parking space by the road. There was no crowd on the day of our visit so we had good darshan of lord Datta. This is the first temple where I saw ek-mukhi Datta. The road to Narayanpur was very beautiful, more so since it had rained for a few days before our journey. All over there was greenery.

We did not spent much time at Narayangaon and proceeded to Jejuri. I had been to Jejuri long time back during my college days with my friends. Once a sleepy village is now a bustling small town. One can drive in the four wheeler right till the base of the temple. There are many private parking spaces available for some fee. I parked my car as near the temple's base as possible :-). One has to climb about 150 steps to reach the Kandoba's temple. On the way one can see the huge statue of Umaji Naik. This temple is actually a fort on which Shivaji Maharaj met Shaji Maharaj after a long time and at this place they worked on various war strategies against the Mugals.

Jejuri is also known for the deepmalas. There are more than 100 deepmalas on the way to the temple. These are made up of solid rock and were used in olden days to put in earthen lamps. For reasons not known to me at this temple the devotees diplay their devotion by throwing fine turmeric powder and pieces of cocunut and chanting "YelKot YelKot JaiMalhar". I do not know the reason or root of this traditioin. If you know about it, you are welcome to share it. Make sure that you do go up the stair case on the side of the temple. From top one can see the beautiful water bodies around the temple. This site is not to be missed!

 

After Khandoba's darshan we started on our way back to Pune. The return journey was through Hadapsar so though there was traffic the distance was less. Have you been to these places? What was your experience?