The Taj was Rs.750 each for tourists (about $17-18) with no free re-entry. Beyond that, though, you are not allowed to bring in ANY food. They frisk you and dig through your bags. Ostensibly, this is to keep the grounds clean, but the real reason is that they know all guidebooks tell you to see it during daylight and at sunset, and that without food, they know no one will last that long. And that every foreign tourist will grudgingly pay the extra $17 rather than take a moral stand. Note that fees for Indians were something like Rs. 25. Some nominal fee. They only screw the foreigners.
So that didn’t get us and Agra off to a good start. But the knowledge that this is a tourist trap pervades everything in town. You can’t drive straight up to the Taj. Rather, you get dropped off at the end of a long street leading up to it. This street happens to be lined with extremely aggressive shops selling absolute crap. I inspected a few things, and they were all of abysmal quality. I wanted some postcards, but even those were terrible.
There is no reliable food near the Taj, so you wind up having to just do the chips n’ biscuits lunch. Of course, all shopkeepers have smudged out the "maximum retail price" marking on all products and sell it for whatever they feel a foreigner will pay. In India, everything’s marked with an MRP, and while stores are allowed to sell for less than this (occasionally they do, but only by a little bit), they cannot charge more. In practice, this isn’t really enforced, and Agra seemed not to care a bit. Again, they know no one will visit India without visiting Agra, so they have absolutely no incentive to cater to tourists.
Enough bitching about Agra. The Taj itself was great. Apparently everybody says "oh, it’s so small," but neither Pete nor I found that to be true. It’s not some sprawling complex, to be sure. It’s just a mausoleum for a guy’s favorite wife (think about that one). So the inside is only a few rooms. The draw is that it’s a giant building entirely in white marble. The sun does amazing things with that, especially at sunset.
After begrudgingly forking over for our evening session (going in, we didn’t think we’d have to re-pay, and the guidebooks did not lead us to believe we would), we really were not in the mood for any more Agra. We just wanted some sunset Taj. This wasn’t meant to be, though, as we were instantly accosted by the hordes of "guides" inside the main gate. I don’t quite know how that racket works, but my guess is these guys pay the nominal Indians’ fee to enter, then charge a few hundred rupees to spout nonsense to foreigners as you walk around. We passed, but not just because this was a scam. The first guy who came up to us barely got two words out of his mouth before doing that ever-so-Indian custom of coughing out a gigantic heap of phlegm. It went something like this: "Excuse me.... acchhhh, HACK, HACKHACK, nchhhhh, THWOOP!" Why yes, sir, I would LOVE to walk around here with a tuberculitic pensioner. JUST how I want to experience the Taj! Next, as we sat at a bench inside, a guy came up behind us to ask for our photo. Pete and I simultaneously mistook him for a guide and rebuffed him. He was at a perfect height for both of us to just elbow him in the balls, and I must say, the temptation was there. Once we realized what was going on, though, we obliged. A few minutes later, a bizarrely sweet family came up to us just to say hi. The young son (10?) asked me "where are you from?" When Pete and I answered, the girl (sameish age) said "Welcome to India!" and the rest of the family then welcomed us. Then they left. I really was waiting for somebody to ask for change, but it never happened.
Not the family that approached us:
On our way out, we were quickly pounced on by a 14-15 year old boy who said, while barely looking up from his cell phone "Hey! I waited for you! I really did! Come check out my shop!" We had not seen this kid before, but this was his schtick to drag people to a particular shop, where he’d get a commission of some sort. Something about his ridiculous line, but equally ridiculous sincerity, convinced me to give this kid the commission on my purchase (some kid was going to get credit--might as well be him). Unfortunately, yeah, the post cards sucked, and without any more Taj to see, Pete and I knew it was time to bail. We just decided to wait out the evening at the train station, which actually had a decent restaurant. So chalk that up for Agra. Their train station doesn’t suck. That’s something.
Up next: that’s all for the cities. I’ll write a bit about train travel, and another post about general India-traveling tips
Jumping photos at the Taj:
Sadly, I didn’t get to use this as I’d hoped. Someday.
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