We got up at 5:30a.m., which had finally started to feel unnatural after days of waking up at 3 am. We were headed to see sunrise at the Taj Mahal. The Taj is a place that everyone who has seen it says its amazing and you head there wondering how much they are exaggerating. As you walk through the market square outside your body is tense as you anticipates seeing how the Taj measures up. But, when you see the building, white marble floating in morning river mist, you relax into its beauty and it becomes clear that no one is exaggerating. Soft light hitting the stone in the morning as the sky pinkens lends an unexpected gentleness to the massive building which, legend says, took 22,000 men 22 years to build. The closer you get the more you appreciate the exquisite craftsmanship, until you are staring incredulously at thousands of tiny pieces of inlaid stone blossoming across every wall and pillar.
After leaving Agra and the Taj we had breakfast and grabbed our bags. We headed out of the city snapping photos of another red fort and the roadside scenes on our way to Fathepur Sikri. Some call Sikri, “Akbar’s Mistake.” Akbar the Great, whose name Akbar, earned such redundant praise not only because he kept an official flatterer on staff but also because he solidified the empires Indian holdings and ushered in the golden age of India's Mughal Empire. He was illiterate but surrounded himself with philosophers and foreign ambassadors and is even rumored to have ordered love letters written to Queen Victoria of England. In short, Akbar was a dreamer, and Sikri is a dream wrought in red sandstone. The palace was built on a vast artificial lake and woven into audience halls, a throne room, secret passageways and a five storied pavilion for Akbar's massive harem. Fourteen years after it was built, Sikri was abandoned and no one knows why. We had the complex to ourselves and it was surreal. To think of such a magnificent city left empty and hollow is to contemplate the wealth of the empire and the power of the King. Indeed, Shah Jahan who ruled after Akbar was considered the wealthiest monarch in the world. (Right: stone latticework at Sikri, the domes of the Sikri palace, the five-story harem complex for Akbar's five wives and hundreds of concubines.)
Saying goodbye to Sikri we began our journey to romantic Rajasthan. Rajasthan is in the northwest of India and is the land of Rajut princes called Maharajas. These princes fought countless wars with each other, built numerous forts and lived lavish lifestyles with harems of women, elephants to ride and thick carpets on the palace floors. They were also men of science and astrology. At the city palace of Jaipur we entered the Maharja’s observatory called the Jantar Mantar. It’s a world heritage cite. (Charlie you would have loved it).
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| One of the instruments in the Maharaja's observatory |
They have the world’s largest sundial, an instrument that allows you to divine your horoscope and sixteen other tools of astrology. In the Hindu religion, astrology is central to all decisions marriages, business transactions and harvesting. In fact because most of India relies on agriculture the main mportance of this center was to predict the weather. From the observatory we descended to the Pink palace. The story goes that the Maharaja painted the palace and city pink to honor Prince Albert’s visit to Jaipur. It’s really a terra cotta pink but it’s striking and the government requires the paint job to be maintained even today. Walking through the pink palace we saw the maharaja transition to modernity in a series of textiles, family photos and polo trophies. By far, the best thing in the palace was the collection of maharaja weapons. (I wish you boys were here to see the collection!) The most sinister one was the scissor dagger which does what it sounds like it does. There were also ivory and jewel encrusted swords, crocodile skin shields and a series of flintlocks and muskets, considered unmanly by the rajputs until they were forced to pick up a pistol or die.
After a long day of traveling we ordered a few kingfishers and passed out.
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