Asia-Europe 2012

Just North of the city there are 3 forts. The main attraction is the Amer Fort, built in the XVI-XVIII centuries. This fort is well preserved and quite large, featuring living quarters for the Maharajah, his family and the attendants, fortifications, temples and even an elephant stable. It took us half a day to explore all corridors, narrow passes and towers.

This could have easily been a fascinating place to relax, similar to Hoi An (1, 2), if it wouldn’t be for the omnipresent trash, stinking streets, beggars and homeless people.

The so-called City Palace is a compound built in the XVIII century and used until 1949 as a residence for the Jaipur Maharajahs. We could see several rooms, a collection of arms and one of costumes. One unusual building is the Hawa Mahal, a building that hosted mainly women. It had small windows so that the women could see outside while not being seen back.

Last two pictures show Jantal Mantal, a collection of 14 astronomical instruments built in the XVIII century of stone. They show the time, phase of moon, predict eclipses and so on. I was able to understand how two of them work 🙂

En route from Agra to Jaipur we stopped to visit Akbar’s Mausoleum (built in XVII century), the Mughal who built also the Agra Fort.

After that we had the chance to see a structure we haven’t seen ever before: the Chand Baori deep well designed to catch rain water during the monsoon season. Later, it was used for consumption and washing. The rooms you see inside the well are the changing and bathing rooms. Left side was for men and right for women.

First thing in Agra we went to the Taj Mahal. It was built in the XVII century by Mughal Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Since Mumtaz was Muslim, the building bears many Muslim influences, such as minarets and Arabic calligraphy. Apart from the wall design and decoration, there isn’t much to be seen, since all rooms are empty and the original tomb has been moved out of sight.

Few years ago, the Indian government noticed the pollution was yellowing the Taj, so instead of tightening the pollution norms they replaced motor vehicles with animal traction on a 2km radius. But since nobody figured out how to deal with the inevitable manure from the horses, the roads are literally covered and a very bad smell accompanies visitors.

Then we went to the Agra fort which, in our opinion, far more interesting, with many rooms and more functionality.

After visiting we became friends with the guide, so he invited us at his place to have some tea and meet his family.