Agra Excursion

The Taj Mahal, one of the modern seven wonders and one of the exquisite monuments in the world. Each day the monument is visited by thousands of people from all over the world and on some days this number gets escalated up to lakhs. People come and get overwhelmed by its magnificence.

In India, if you live in a tourist city like Agra then there is a 100% chance that you become a guide for your relatives and take them to places/monuments such as Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, etc. Neither you can say no nor you can make excuses to them. Hence all these circumstances make you less attracted towards these places.

Being a resident of Agra a.k.a Tajnagri since birth, it was like no more extraordinary thing for me to see the Taj Mahal. I could get a glimpse of it from my house terrace (during clear weather). All the visits to Taj Mahal that I paid were during my teenage. Due to less maturity, I could not understand the beauty of this masterpiece. There was a time when I had frequent visits to Taj Mahal with my relatives and slowly it became a usual thing for me.

Now it had been more than 5 years that I visited Taj Mahal. After such long duration, I was wishing to revive my memories of Taj, so I planned to visit it again and wanted to experience it fully. Visiting Taj Mahal solo was seeming a little boring thing for me. So I was waiting for someone who could be my travel mate. My wish got fulfilled when my colleague (Vibhor Bhaiya) told me about his plan of coming to Agra to see and explore the place. After he arrived, we made our plan for the next day morning. Our plan consisted of visiting 3 notable historical destinations of Agra, i.e., Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri.

We started our day with the delicious breakfast that my mother cooked. Kicked on my bike and began our journey at 9 AM. Fatehpur Sikri is around 40 km from Agra main city. As I ride fast, it took around 40 minutes to reach there. I had seen Fatehpur Sikri for only once and that too during my school picnic in 4th standard. After that picnic, I never got any opportunity to visit this monument so this was the reason that I was more eager to see Fatehpur Sikri than the Taj Mahal. The monument is situated near the border of Uttar Pradesh & Rajasthan in the Fatehpur district. It is a monument built by Mughal emperor Akbar. He shifted his capital from Agra to there when he blessed with a son due to blessings of Salim Chishti.

The weather was scorching hot there, but it was tolerable due to continuous breeze. I parked my bike and bought tickets for two. We hired a guide and started exploring the monument. First, we saw the shrine of Salim Chisti and then explored the main mahal. The monument was clean and tranquil as there were quite less visitors. We saw Diwan-i-Aam, Ibadat Khana, Naubat Khana & Panch Mahal. After spending some time, we came back to Agra and had our lunch in the Hotel Solitaire, located at MG Road. The food was good and cheap.

Later, we continued our journey and visited our next destination, viz, Agra Fort. We reached there at 2:30 pm and started exploring without any pause because we were short of time and we had to visit Taj Mahal also on the same day. It took around 2 hours to explore the fort. We explored Diwan-i-aam, Diwan-i-khaas, gardens, etc. Also got our first view of Taj Mahal through a window. We got tired & completely exhausted after exploring the fort. Our legs started paining. To turn up the energy level, we drank coconut water from outside the fort and then moved to Taj Mahal.

Reached Taj Mahal at around 5 PM and as usual, it was filled with its lovers. In the evening the weather turned little cool. Now it wasn’t warmer. We started enjoying in roaming around the monument. As usual, it was looking splendid and due to ideal weather our experience became better. After roaming for some time, we relaxed there and enjoyed the back side view of river Yamuna during sunset. Later we had our dinner at Sadar Bazaar and got back to our home.

If you are visiting Taj Mahal in the summer season (not in monsoon) then try to visit it in the evening. It gets more beautiful in the evening and the marble floor gets cooled. So you won’t feel uncomfortable in moving around.