chaotic moments

I had a mast weekend at agra … we were 5 of us … 2 old friends and their spouse …

Considering the couples around me … I tried to ensure not to disturb them too much by keeping myself occupied with my Nikon … :)

We didn’t roam around too much as we wanted more to have a relaxed vacation than a hush-hush site seeing trip …

Started by 8:30 in morning, our first stop was Sikandra (Akbar’s makbara). We spent little more than an hour – busy shooting the dears there in the garden :) …

Then we went to hotel to freshen up and have lunch … we booked a serviced apartment (Signature Crest) rather than a hotel. It is slightly off the track and is in the residential area of the town. It’s a flat is a residential complex – fully furnished and is supported by a care taker – 24x7. Nice homely atmosphere ...

We got little delayed starting from the apartment and got further delayed by the traffic in between to reach the Taj Mahal. By the time we could enter the monument, it was already dark. Though the idea with us was to see the full moon Taj, but the moon delayed it’s presence … and we decided to return to Taj in the morning again … considering the traffic pains … we decided to call it a day …

The next day morning … we checked out and instead of going to Fatehpur Sikri (as planned earlier), we decided to spend some more time at Taj and return to base …

No doubt, Taj is magnanimous and is very beautiful … from one shot you might not understand the beauty of the monument, but when you see closely, the carvings and the stonework that has gone behind, added with the scale and scope of the work … it hits you hard with the facts … one of the things which impressed me most was that though the marble slabs were put together individually, the writings or the design didn’t break anywhere in between … you feel that it’s just one piece of stone that has been carved … then there were carvings which were consistent across the place … every wall/ door … had precisely same design and beauty.

However, there was a darker side to it too … the back side of the Taj – the Yamuna River – it was really painful to see the dirtiness / unkemptness of the river and its surroundings … I wish the administration would have given little more attention to it … further the approach road to the Taj (some 2~3 Km stretch) is really painful … may be the municipality does something to it…

While returning, we stopped over Panchhi Petha to grab some famous sweets (Pethas) of Agra. Then, at Mathura, just before the city, on the highway there is an outlet of McD (near refinery) and the Brijwasi sweet shop … which was supposed to keep the famous Mathura pedas … to our disappointment didn’t had any!!!

... a nice trip to cherish …

# posted by chaos @ 12:49 PM