You'll all remember the classic picture of Princess Diana in Agra, posed on a marble bench with the Taj Mahal itself as the backdrop. Indeed, you'll all know the story of the Taj Mahal - ruler meets girl, falls in love, swears undying love, builds enormous and magnificent tomb to mark her passing.
Of course, Diana was there very early in the morning, when the public are excluded, and when the temperature was at its most bearable. They probably didn't mention the drive - she was probably flown - the fact that, in late September the temperatures are in the mid-nineties Fahrenheit, or the extent of the crowds trying to get a closer look. All of which rather strips the place of its sense of romance.
However, it did seem like an opportunity to recover from the jet lag in a cultural way, and so, after an awfully early start, I found myself in an air-conditioned people carrier headed down National Highway 2. You, like most people, probably imagine a fairly decent road. Let me tell you, NH-2 is hardly that, passing through large towns amidst chaotic traffic, with everything from mopeds to auto-rickshaws to oxcarts occupying the two lanes in each direction. If ever you needed a demonstration that building roads attracts traffic way beyond what justified the building of them in the first place, this is it. The heroic driver took all of this in his stride, however, and we made it without incident.
Now you might think that, from my comments thus far, I consider the Taj Mahal to be overrated. Far from it, the story is one of the most romantic, the building itself is still magnificent, and the setting is amazing. No wonder that so many want to see it...
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