5th March - Agra to Jaipur

We had to be up really early today as we were going to the Taj Mahal. We piled into tuk tuks, but they were the Rolls Royces of the fleet - gleaming green metal work on the front, cream colored plastic seats with bright red and orange flowers on them. We joined the main road traffic madness, but then turned off into a side street - just outside the main gate of the Taj there was the extreme poverty that we were rapidly getting used to, including animals roaming the streets (hogs, cows, goats, mangy dogs, chickens), open fires rubbish and trash everywhere, knee deep in most places, and over all the dusty brown choking air.

We had to walk the last 200 yards to the Taj and through the sandstone gatehouse it was suddenly calm and peaceful. The buildings outside the Taj main area are sandstone, carved intricately, colonnades, arched doorways, green green grass, monkeys climbing over the ramparts. We were open-mouthed with the beauty of this, but much better was to come. As we turned left towards the Taj, we could see it framed perfectly in the archway of the inner gatehouse. According to the guidebook the gatehouse symbolises the divide between the secular world and paradise, and indeed the Taj looked like it was in paradise, the sun just coming up in the east and tinging the marble a subtle pinkish/blueish colour. The Taj is revealed gradually as you walk through the gateway and the minarets then come into view, completing the picture. My camera went into overdrive - pictures of the perfect symmetry of the building and the gardens in which it is set, the beautiful flower beds, the cypress trees (symbolising death) and the fruit trees (symbolising life). As I walked up towards the Taj itself its true beauty was revealed - the marble glistening, the towers, the domes, and most stunning of all the huge numbers of semi-precious stones carved into exact shapes of flowers, leaves, swirls, etc and embedded into every surface and face of the Taj, symmetrical on every side. Graziella and I went into the tomb itself (shoes off or covered) and we were blown away with the intricacy of the marble carved screen, the Koran all over the walls, and the semi-precious stones covering everything. No pics were allowed in here, but it is just as amazing in the memory. I walked around the back of the Taj and the view across the river was like an oil-painting - completely still and subdued colours, hazy river, the air light-brownish with pollution, the river's tranquillity just broken by a boat being punted along. Stunning!

We got back to breakfast by 9.00 and by 9.45 we were speeding through Agra's streets to get a bus to go to Jaipur. The luggage hold was round the back of the bus - no vacuum was required to clean out the metal box as the dust just fell through the gaps in the floor. Our bags were all stuffed in here, and on the 5-6 hours down to Jaipur got totally covered in dust and Graziella found that dust had made its way into her rucksack and ruined some of her clothes - yeuk! The trip to Jaipur was actually not too bad - it was long, hot and tiring, but it was on a made, tarmac road, albeit being made as it was being driven on!! None of the western "waiting a couple of years for the road to be made", this was being constructed in real-time, the traffic using one side of the road to go both ways, but somehow there were no crashes or narrow-squeaks!

We entered Jaipur through the old city (the usual market stalls, dirt, dust, animals etc), but once up into the "new" Jaipur we found a lovely city - quite my favourite of all the cities I visited in India this trip. Wide open spaces, green parks, colonial buildings kept clean, not so polluted, but enlivened by the market stalls, fruit and veg being sold everywhere, tuk tuks and traffic etc. We were taken to the IDEX office for paperwork completion and our first taste of very sweet chai tea, and then after some time (we were very tired by now) we were dropped off at our host families. Ours were Anju (wife) and Ritesh (husband) with Aryan and Emon (sons). This was our true taste of Indian city life, and we had a delicious evening meal, and played with the kids. We were also joined by Michael from Germany, the 8th and final member of our team, and who was to become an important person in my life for the next 4 weeks.