Taking Time for the Taj

Say what you will, the Taj is just a big tomb.

Stunningly beautiful big tomb, of course, but it serves no other purpose.  Or at least it served no other purpose when it was built.  Now, it brings millions of visitors to Agra, and they bring millions of dollars, which brings out what seem to be millions of street vendors and millions of beggars.

Our ship is docked in Kochi (also known as Cochin), on the western side of the southern tip of India.  So going from Kochi to Agra is like pulling into New York City and deciding you need to see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  But only if you had to fly into Chicago and then take a train to St. Louis. 

We’re in India for 6 days, and I spent 4 days going to see the Taj Mahal.  The only way I can really justify that is that I didn’t fly from Washington, D.C. to do it.  By comparison, Kochi is just around the corner.

Our landing was scheduled for 8 AM and our flight for 2 PM, which doesn’t sound like a difficult connection to make, but nothing is simple when you’re dealing with immigration.  Because we live on the ship, it can be easy to forget that we are coming into a foreign country as fare-paying passengers and the security is as stringent as your average airport.  One thousand people have to pick up our passports, show them to customs officials, get stamps, and officially enter the country.  Then we each have to go through ship security and port security to leave the area where we are docked.  The airport is 90 minutes away, and there’s a whole set of security measures there, too.

I was in the first group of people to get off the ship because of my flight schedule, and things went very smoothly, so we made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Leaving the ship around 9:30, we got to our hotel in New Delhi around 8:30. 

The next morning, we were up by 4 to take a train to Agra, arriving there are around 8:30.  After touring the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort, we drove back to Delhi via a bear rescue center.  We got to our hotel around 7:30.  We had one full day in Delhi and then back to the airport (leave the hotel at 7) to return to the ship.  In all, two and a half days of travel to see the Taj.

Also:  ship, bus, airport shuttle, airplane, bus, bus, train, bus, electric bus, Taj, electric bus, bus, plane, bus.  Add tuk tuk and ferry for yesterday’s travel around Kochi.  Have not gone anywhere by rickshaw, motorbike, or elephant.

The Taj is definitely worth going to once.  It’s big and it’s beautiful, and being a “high value woman” I got to go inside.  You go through separate lines for security—yes, there’s airport type security here, too—and there are signs pointing the way, but in fact I didn’t even have a ticket.  Our tickets were good for both the Taj and the Red Fort, so our tour guide kept them until we were done with both.  Perhaps the assumption is that every Western face belongs to a high value ticket?

You can’t take pictures inside and there’s nothing spectacular about the inside, so touring the grounds is actually quite sufficient.  (A hint for those who might find themselves in the vicinity some day soon.  Also, closed on Fridays.  You’re welcome.)

The Taj Mahal is in the middle of two smaller, identical buildings.  One is a mosque.  The other is not; it was built for symmetry.  (Being symmetrical with the mosque, it is facing away from Mecca.)  It was built, as you probably know, as a memorial to the favorite wife of one of the Moghul kings, and it took over 20 years to finish.  A 2-mile ramp was built to haul stone to the top.  It was never intended to be a public monument, just a private expression of his grief.  It was the British, our guide told us, who “romanticized it” and put it on people’s must-see lists.  The king planned to build a black marble replica for himself across the river, but he wound up imprisoned by an ungrateful third son (who also assassinated his two older brothers, suggesting that first-born ascension to the throne is not a universally appreciated custom), so now both the king and his wife are buried together. 

In modern India, people are cremated rather than buried, and their ashes are taken to the Ganges for interment.  Some people whose families cannot afford cremation just dump the bodies into the Ganges.  This makes the Ganges a very holy and very polluted river.

On our way to the airport the final day, we happened upon a funeral procession.  Four men carrying a wrapped body on their shoulders.  We zipped past it too quickly for me to get a picture.  Our guide told us that in India, whether the deceased is male or female, only the men go to accompany it for cremation.  The women stay home and mourn (for 13 days). 

A happy birthday today to the wife of my own first born; here is your “funerary customs in India” post.