Ahh, the tourist photo in front of the Taj.
Our guide does a pretty good job of it.
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Off to one side of the Taj is a pollution
monitoring station. The city of Agra has set up a no pollution zone
about a kilometer around the Taj Mahal, but I don't know how anything
other than 200 acres of forest is going to make a dent in the Indian
smog. This sign says today the levels of sulphur dioxide are within
tolerance as are the levels of nitrous oxide, but levels of general
particulate matter are off the charts.
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Our guide says the Taj isn't as crowded as it
sometimes is. Still it is breathtaking how many people visit the Taj
everyday, except Fridays when it is only open to Muslims for prayer.
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Our next stop is the Agra Red
Fort. We should compare it to the Red Fort of Delhi, but we were advised
not to waste our time on the Delhi fort if we were going to see the Agra
fort. It is definitely impressive and brings back all sorts of Dungeon
and Dragon memories. I would have paid a lot for the floor plan of this
fort when I was a dungeon master in high school.
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I also have to wonder if the movie Baron von
Munchhausen was filmed here. It is so much larger than life.
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This fort is one of the products of the
height of the Moghul empire and it is hard to imagine it being breached
and sacked. But it was.
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I would love to see an artist's rendering of
what some of the palace grounds inside the fort would have looked like
in its heyday. The bare bones of the fort are already spectacular, but
with carpets and rose water and musicians and eunuchs, wow.
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This room was once painted with gold leaf,
but only the shadow remains after the gold has been looted.
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