Thursday, January 14, 2010

Agra, India - Red Fort and Taj Mahal again

After spending a few hours at the Taj Mahal in the morning, we had a cup of coffee and then headed over to the Red Fort of Agra. The Mughal emperors Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb all lived here. It was originally a brick fort and has been around as early as 1080AD. When Akbar decided to make Agra the capital, he had it rebuilt from ruins with red sandstone. It was completed in 1573 after well over one million builders worked on it for eight years. It was also where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son, Aurangzeb, for the last seven years of his life - with a view out the window of the Taj Mahal he had built for his wife.
After exploring the Agra Fort, we ate lunch. Here's where we had lunch, looking down the street in both directions:
As we walked back to the car, I saw a bull walking toward us and decided to take a photo of my friends walking by the bull. Here's the bull:
Apparently, the bull did not appreciate this because when I walked by, he rammed me with his horns - hitting me first on the bum and then bruising my elbow. That'll teach me to photograph camera-shy bulls, huh?

We also saw a barber on the way back to the car. You can't tell very well from the photos, but the barber's shirt was metallic silver.
Here's what the street looked like where we were supposed to meet the driver:
Here it is with motion and sound:
Yeah....and we crossed that street. We didn't find the driver for some time, but we eventually did and decided to end our day across the Yamuna River from the Taj Mahal to watch the sunset. We walked along a fence on a small dirt road that ended at a gate on the shore of the river. A few other people were already there and several children were selling postcards. It ended up being a great place to watch children bringing in their goats, women carrying bundles of sticks on their heads, and of course, the sunset and the Taj Mahal.
Here's the boy we bought our postcards from:
He was a pretty clever little salesman - speaking a few words of several languages and laying on the charm.

More photos at flickr.

--Sarah--

1 comment:

FilipBlog said...

Very nice pictures, I am considering to take a holiday in India.

Greetings,
Filip