Agra - home of the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is the highlight of Agra, let there be no mistake. In fact, it’s one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and changes its facets through the day, which makes it worth a visit more than once to appreciate the changing colours and aspects. It's wonderful, as good and better than all the pictures you'll have seen of it.

Fatehphur Sikri, a nearby planned town, is a fascinating day trip from Agra. Built as a planned town, it was abandoned after only 15 years or so, and remains as it was built, still complete and absolutely fascinating. The Agra Fort is an impressive building, standing proud and red on the bank of the river. It’s a great contrast and comparison to the Red Fort in Delhi, and seeing both is definitely a good idea.

Quick Tips:

Don't eat in Agra - it's famous for its virulent stomach bugs (-: And don’t breathe, and the pollution is terrible. And don’t drink…… you get the point. This is a place to be extra careful about what you take into your body! Be aware of the touts in Agra, they are very persistent and need to be avoided with more effort even than elsewhere in India.

Best Way To Get Around:

The things to do and see in Agra are quite spread out, and given the climate for much of the year, it’s not practical to walk everywhere. Fortunately, as in the rest of India, transport is plentiful and cheap. There is the normal choice of cycle rickshaw, motor rickshaw, and taxi available, and as Agra is a tourist destination there are even some air-con taxis, but they’ll cost you quite a bit more, perhaps 70% more than a normal taxi.

This hotel is a great place to stay. It's cheap - £1 for a double room with a bathroom - and comfortable. It doesn't have air-con, but it does have fans in the ceilings. The owner is helpful, friendly, and speaks English. The rooms vary in size and quality - ours was lovely but the one we saw next door wasn't as nice though the same price. Ask to see your room before you pay, and they'll show you a nice one!

The roof-top has a great view of the Taj Mahal, and you can get breakfast served to you on this roof terrace. I liked this hotel a lot.

We booked two rooms at the Clarks Shiraz hotel from Clarks Varanasi, and they sent a car to pick us up from the airport. The hotel is one of the bigger Clarks, with some 300 rooms, and slightly cheaper than the Varanasi hotel at 2,100 Rs / room / night. My room had twin beds, a TV with BBC World, an armchair, desk and chair, wardrobe, bedside tables, and a bathroom with bath and shower. The airconditioner had 3 settings, and there was also a fan. The room had dark green curtains and bed covers, pale green carpets, and cream walls, and was a pleasant place to stay.

The hotel had services available – same-day laundry, shops, travel centre, bank, air-line offices (Indian, Jet, and Lufthansa), photography and postcards studio, 2 restaurants, internet access (pricey at 200 Rs for half an hour), post-box, doctor, astrologer, and disabled assistance. All pretty impressive, although we didn’t trouble the astrologer...

I can’t be altogether positive about the place, however. My mother’s and my rooms weren’t very close together, as they were full when we stayed there, which meant we used the phones between the rooms. Irritatingly, there was no direct dial between the rooms, and the operator took up to 3 minutes to answer the phone on occasions! The system also seemed flaky – my brother ringing us from the UK was told there was no answer from my mother’s room, although we were sitting right next to the phone waiting for him to call. The worst aspect, though, was a charge for about £10 on the bill for a phone call we disputed. They accepted it was wrongly made, but put a huge amount of pressure on us, telling us that if we didn’t pay it, the staff would have to, and that we could afford it and they couldn’t. This type of emotional blackmail over the bill, for something they accepted we had been wrongly charged for, I found absolutely unacceptable. I liked many of the Clarks hotels, but this one lets the chain down.

The main restaurant in the Clarks Shiraz hotel is on the 5th (and top) floor of the building, with a great view of the Taj Mahal during the day (the building is not lit up at night, so you can’t see it then.) They serve 2 kinds of food – Murghal and "continental", which is vaguely European food. The restaurant is large, with room for perhaps 60 diners, and one long side of the room is all windows, with the great view. On the other long side is a platform, from where Indian Classical music is played during the evening. The room is decorated in different shades of red, mostly dark, which gives it a cosy feeling in the evening, and makes it feel a bit like being inside the human body during the day.

The first evening we were there, my mother and I had pilau rice, small paneer (cheese) pancakes with garlic sauce, lentils, and chickpeas with garlic. The portions were fairly generous, so we had a bit too much food between us, but the variety was good. The pancakes were very hot – too spicy for me – and the meal as a whole was very spicy, even thought we asked for medium, not hot. If you don’t like really hot food, it’s a good idea to ask for mild here. The cost was 1,100 Rs – expensive for India, but the food was very good indeed. The second night in Agra we were both tired after a long day, and had a passable but not amazing room service meal from the same restaurant – omelettes and toasted sandwiches. The third evening we ventured back upstairs, and had a Diwan Kebab – a mixture of lots of small servings of different dishes, available in meat and vegetarian options. We had the vegetarian one, which was 500 Rs for 2 people, and can only be ordered as a 2 person dish. It included 5 different types of curry, rice, dal, and roti bread, and was very good indeed.

The restaurant is incredibly good at Indian food, and if you’re in Agra, I’d recommend a visit here – the restaurant is open to non-guests, and indeed most of the diners when we were there weren’t staying at the hotel. Their continental food isn’t that good, so stick to the Indian.

You've seen this building a million times in photos and drawings, but nothing can compare to the sight of it in real life. Agra is a nasty city. It's hot, polluted, and suffers from power shortages, sickness, aggressive touts, pollution, and noise. This throws the Taj into even greater relief, as an oasis of calm and beauty. The building is set in a large expanse of green lawns, and it is a beautiful, tranquil place to be even before you get to the Taj itself. We sat for a half-hour in the gardens before our first visit, just relaxing, enjoying the view, and preparing to get closer up. The building itself is beyond words. Inlaid all over its vast surface with precious stones, it glistens from a distance. It is perfectly proportioned from every angle, it looks wonderful from every perspective. You have to go at sunset, when the structure is bathed in a warm glow, which adds to the wonder of it. We also went at dawn, and the contrast in the way it looked was amazing.

This town was planned and built from scratch in the 16th century. Houses and facilities for 40,000 were built. Unfortunately, the architects didn't access the needed amount of water, and there wasn't enough available for the town to thrive, so it was abandoned after only a few decades. As a result, the town is now a perfectly preserved 16th century location, and well-worth a day trip.

Most of the city is built of a red stone, that appears to be sandstone. Parts of the city are well-maintained with polished floors and inlaid walls, and other buildings are crumbling away. The contrast makes it a fascinating place. The first building you come to on arriving is the mosque. This was a muslim, Moguhl town from the start. The mosque - and indeed the whole town - was built from a reddish sandstone, and is very attractive in colour and design. The tomb in the middle of the mosque is probably the most beautiful thing about it. Made of marble, it features amazing carved marble screen windows - they have to be seen to be believed!

The rest of the town is laid out behind the mosque. I recommend you hire one of the many waiting guides, as then the buildings' functions will be clear, and you will get a lot more out of your visit. They speak excellent English, aren't at all expensive, and know a lot about the city, and help you really understand how the place functioned. The stables, barracks, and houses are all laid out carefully, and are most attractive.

We hired an ambassador car and driver in Agra to take us there and back, and it was a good idea to do so. It isn't expensive, and it takes away a lot of the hassle.

Travel in Agra is cheap, but the potential for being ripped off is huge. Taxis and rickshaws mostly have meters, but they are always "broken", and cycle-rickshaws never have them. What you therefore have to do is negotiate a price before you set out – should anyone say "as you like", this is your cue to determine what you like – if you accept it and give what you think is reasonable when you get there, a huge argument will ensue.

There is a travel centre in the Clarks hotel, that will organise and book taxis for you, to and from the airport, Taj Mahal, the Fort, or Fatephur Sikri. The car we had was modern, and not an Ambassador, with a quiet engine and good suspension. The centre was very helpful when we booked, and the driver spoke English well. The prices were non-negotiable, however, but were reasonable if on the pricey side, and very reliable. It’s a good idea to have a car booked to take you from the airport to the town if you are arriving by air, as it’s a military airport with the odd civilian flight, and there aren’t many taxis there.

The driver we had spoke English well and knew exactly where he was going, but there were some (typical for India) irritations – he picked us up at the agreed time, but 5 minutes later stopped for petrol, and put pressure on us to be taken to handicraft and marble shops, etc. After words with the office, this stopped.

The prices we were quoted were 150 Rs to the airport or back, 500 return to F. Sikri, and 300 Rs return to the Taj. The last of these is very expensive, as it’s a short distance, but the other two aren’t bad.

The electricty here goes off at the drop of a hat. There seemed to be cuts of about 5 hours a day, at irregular intervals, for unknown duration, and frequently! A torch is very useful here, as you can find yourself half-way through a shower, or brushing your teeth, and need light to finish off. One annoying thing about this, but there's nothing you can do, is that the fans go off when the power does. This means rooms can get hot very fast! One consequence of this power shortage is that food can be very dangerous. Never eat anything in Agra that suffers if the fridge or freezer goes out.

Among travellers, this town is a byword for stomach trouble. I ate a totally veggie diet in India, but in Agra I caught Salmonella from a vegetable curry, as did the friend I was travelling with. Take it from me - Salmonella is a horrible bug, and the (considerable) weight loss isn't worth it!

It wasn't just us - we met many other people who were careful about food, and didn't eat meat, and were fine all around India and then got ill in Agra. Be very careful about what you eat, and this is a town where it's worth paying more and going to more expensive places, in the hope that the hygiene is better.

Another food thing to watch out for in Agra is the mineral water. While we were waiting at the station, we saw some boys filling up old bottles at the tap next to the train, then going to sell the 'safe' water to tourists. Before you buy, and drink water in Agra, check the seal of the bottle very carefully indeed. In the end, we ran all the water we bought in Agra through our bottle filters; you fill the bottle with water and suck through a straw at the top so that all the nasties are filtered out.