The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
January 29 - The Taj Mahal and Other Delights
If its Thursday, it must be the Taj Mahal. Without the Taj as a lure, we might well have deferred the trip to a better time. But in truth it is always a bad time to take a trip like this and we really can never afford it ... but somehow it all manages to work itself out after the fact. I suspect the hardest part is just deciding to do it. After that it seems to get easier somehow.
You can see the Taj without a guide but the price for a private guide were so reasonable (600 rupees for half a day -- about US $12) and it is always nice to have someone who knows how the system works. Being with a local guide also helps provide a bit of protection from the army of hawkers, hustlers and general pests who latch on to anyone who even slightly looks like a foreign visitor. Hey, we DO stand out in the crowd. With the tourism numbers down so drastically this year, the mob seems even more persistent. Survival can be an ugly motivation.
So before dawn we met our government-certified guide. Sanjay and our fearless driver Lalit for our trip to the Taj. Sunrise and sunset are the most desireable times to see the Taj Mahal because the shifting light causes the marble of the building to reflect and glow in very different ways. As part of his guide certification, Sanjay also attended a course on photography and knew exactly where the best angles were and exactly when he would get those perfect shots. Certainly there was no comparison between the shots he took of us and what we would expect from asking a passerby to take the picture.
After a brief break back at the hotel, we ventured out again for a couple of hours to wander through Agra Fort -- interesting in its way -- but the Taj is a hard act to follow! A late lunch at the hotel and there was nothing left to do but kick back until Lalit arrived to drive us to the train station to catch our train to Jaipur. Tomorrow begins the Rajahstan segment of this subcontinental adventure.
© 2009 Restaurant Doctor
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