The Taj Mahal Was OK, But The Agra Fort in Agra, India Is Amazing!

Apr 1, 2018 • By Leonidas K. • 7 min read

India Travel

Getting to the Taj Mahal without much Sleep

I decided to stay in Old Delhi, India for a total of 5 days, in order to really see as much as possible of the city.

During that time, my intentions were to also visit the Taj Mahal, which was located in Agra, India.

I went to the train station near my hostel in Old Delhi, and bought a ticket the day before.

Theoretically, a car ride is only about 3 hours from Old Delhi, to Agra, India.

Yet, by train, I left at 8pm, and arrived by 3am in Agra (a total of 8 hours).

Because the trains have no set schedule, you are constantly awake, making sure you don’t miss your stop.

I arrived in Agra, India, took a ‘tuk-tuk’ taxi to my hostel, slept for another 3 hours, and woke up at 7am, to head to the Taj Mahal.

In the photos, you might notice my dark raccoon eyes, due to a lack of sleep.

To enter the Taj Mahal, Indian nationals pay about $2 to enter, while foreigners pay about $20 USD.

While the Taj Mahal is one of the most iconic locations in the world to take a selfie in, I have to admit that the Agra Fort was a much more enjoyable and breathtaking artifact of history.

It’s kind of how the ‘Mona Lisa’ painting is a tiny over-rated painting (metaphorical Taj Mahal) in the Louvre Museum in France, yet when you look behind yourself in the same room, you see a really stunning painting of an epic scale (metaphorical Agra Fort).

Oh, and the squirrels in the Agra Fort will literally climb you up and down looking for food.

One Taj Mahal For Your Persian Princess

Shah Jahan had several wives, but his most favorite was Mumtaz Mahal. After giving birth to their 14th child, she died a painful death.

Stricken with grief, and an undying love, Jahan commissioned for a tomb to be built in 1631, which was completed by 1643 and involved 20,000 laborers and the equivalent of almost $900 million USD (2018).

The tomb and its surrounding buildings and walls were heavily influenced by a Mughal and Timurid-style as seen at the Gur-e Amir (Tomb of Timur) Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

The bright green lawns that run towards the center of the Taj Mahal were commissioned by the British in the 19th century.

And at present, the Taj Mahal, and its enormous minarets are sinking into the ground because the river beside it is drying up at a rate of 1.5 meters per year.

Interestingly enough, just like the Temple in Jerusalem, the origin of the Taj Mahal is being contested as well.

Despite being commissioned by an Islamic leader, various Hindu conspiracy theorists are saying it was commissioned by a Hindu leader, despite not having any solid evidence.

The Darwaza-i-Rauza, the main gateway to the Taj Mahal complex

A red sandstone chhatri atop the Taj Mahal complex walls

First glimpse of the Taj Mahal through the Darwaza-i-Rauza archway

The Taj Mahal on a cloudy morning. The green lawns were built by the British in the 19th century.

The Taj Mahal up close, wrapped in scaffolding for restoration

The mosque flanking the Taj Mahal, built from red sandstone and white marble

One of the Minarets which surround the Taj Mahal. These are slowly arching inwards because the ground is sinking.

One of the many cupolas at the Taj Mahal.

Pietra dura inlay work and Quranic calligraphy on the Taj Mahal’s facade

Quranic calligraphy in Thuluth script, inlaid in black marble on the Taj Mahal

The Jawab (assembly hall), the symmetrical twin of the mosque on the east side

The Charbagh gardens and reflecting pool, looking back toward the great gateway

Leonidas posing in the Charbagh gardens with the Darwaza-i-Rauza behind

The Darwaza-i-Rauza from ground level, with chhatris on all four corners

A red sandstone chhatri on the Taj Mahal complex’s perimeter wall

Selfie in front of the Taj Mahal, with one of the four minarets under scaffolding

Met these two Brazilian travelers after overhearing them speak Portuguese

Group photo with the Brazilian travelers, Taj Mahal and reflecting pool behind us

Leonidas posing in front of the Taj Mahal

The Agra Fort

The Agra Fort is the real star of this city. The Taj Mahal gets all the press, but I spent three times longer inside this 94-acre fortress and could have kept going.

Originally called Badalgarh, this fort has been fought over more times than almost any structure in India. The Lodis held it first, then the Mughals took it in 1526. Akbar the Great rebuilt the whole thing in red sandstone, bringing in 4,000 workers and finishing in eight years. His grandson Shah Jahan added white marble palaces inside, the same material he’d later use for the Taj Mahal.

When Shah Jahan grew old, his son Aurangzeb seized power and locked him inside one of his own marble towers. Shah Jahan spent his last eight years as a prisoner, staring across the river at the tomb he built for his wife.

The Marathas took the fort in the 1700s. The British East India Company captured it in 1803. Today, about two-thirds of the fort is still used by the Indian military and closed to visitors.

You enter through the Amar Singh Gate, a triple-layered defensive entrance designed so that attackers would have to make three sharp 90-degree turns under fire from above.

Women in colorful saris walking toward the Agra Fort entrance

The outer walls of the Agra Fort, once surrounded by a crocodile-filled moat

The Amar Singh Gate, the main visitor entrance to the Agra Fort

Walking through the towering Amar Singh Gate, decorated with marble inlay

Red sandstone balconies and carved brackets of the Amar Singh Gate

The massive red sandstone walls and turrets of the Agra Fort

Looking up at the sheer scale of the Amar Singh Gate’s defensive towers

The defensive corridor between the fort’s inner and outer walls

Jahangiri Mahal (Jahangir’s Palace) is an example of Mughal architecture using red sandstone (before white stone became popular).

A red sandstone chhatri on the Jahangiri Mahal, blending Hindu and Mughal styles

A raptor perched on a sandstone finial wrapped in barbed wire

Hexagram motifs on the Jahangiri Mahal, Hindu symbols identifiable by their central circle

A five-striped palm squirrel nibbling on the red sandstone floor

Khas Mahal & the Anguri Bagh

Once past the red sandstone zones, the architecture shifts dramatically. Shah Jahan tore out some of Akbar’s buildings and replaced them with white marble, the same makeover he’d later do at the Red Fort in Delhi.

The Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience) is where the emperor sat on a raised marble platform and heard petitions from ordinary citizens. Behind it lies the private royal compound: the Khas Mahal was Shah Jahan’s personal residence, flanked by the Anguri Bagh (Grape Garden), a geometric Mughal courtyard that once grew actual grapes. The two flanking pavilions, the Roshan Ara and the Jahan Ara, have curved Bengal-style roofs covered in gilded copper.

Red sandstone corridors inside the Jahangiri Mahal

The Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience), commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1631

Tree-lined pathway through the fort grounds

A closed section of the fort, with the Moti Masjid’s white domes visible behind

The Khas Mahal (Shah Jahan’s private residence) overlooking the Anguri Bagh gardens

The Anguri Bagh (Grape Garden), a geometric Mughal garden courtyard

The gilded dome of the Khas Mahal, with a bird perched on its finial

White marble cusped arches of the Khas Mahal

The Anguri Bagh’s geometric flower beds, with the Khas Mahal to the left

The Anguri Bagh from the opposite side, looking toward the Diwan-i-Khas

The Jahan Ara Pavilion, with its distinctive curved Bengal-style roof

Shah Jahan’s Last View

This is the part that gets you. After Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb in 1658, he was imprisoned in the Musamman Burj, an octagonal marble tower on the fort’s eastern wall. For the last eight years of his life, he gazed out through marble lattice screens at the Taj Mahal across the Yamuna, the tomb he’d built for his wife just 2.5 kilometers away but forever out of reach. He died in 1666 and was buried next to Mumtaz inside the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal across the Yamuna River, seen from the Agra Fort terraces

The Taj Mahal through a marble jali screen, the view Shah Jahan saw from his prison

A visitor rests in the shade of the Khas Mahal’s marble arcades

The fort’s red sandstone outer walls, dropping 70 feet to the moat below

The Roshan Ara Pavilion, flanking the Khas Mahal

A worker sweeping inside a vaulted hall with traces of Mughal-era paintings on the walls

Inside the Palaces

The Jahangiri Mahal is the largest palace inside the fort. Akbar built it around 1570 for his son Jahangir, blending Hindu and Islamic architectural styles in a way you don’t see at most Mughal sites. Hindu carved brackets sit next to Islamic pointed arches, all in vivid red sandstone. The Akbari Mahal next door is even older and more weathered, with faded Mughal-era paintings still clinging to the interior walls. By the time I got here, the crowds had thinned and I had entire corridors to myself.

The inner courtyard of the Jahangiri Mahal, built by Emperor Akbar around 1570

Selfie inside the Jahangiri Mahal courtyard

Intricately carved red sandstone corbels in the Jahangiri Mahal

An octagonal vaulted ceiling inside the Akbari Mahal

A dark corridor through the Akbari Mahal, light streaming through the far doorway

A red sandstone courtyard with a gilded chhatri rising above the palace walls

A gilded chhatri atop one of the fort’s palatial buildings

Red sandstone arched niches with white marble trim on the palace walls

Inside a red sandstone pavilion, looking out through carved jali screens over the Yamuna floodplain

The Moti Masjid & Fort Walls

From the terraces, the views stretch for miles across the Yamuna floodplain, with the Taj Mahal hovering in the haze to the southeast. You can also see the full scale of the fort’s outer walls from up here: 70 feet high, over a mile in circumference, once surrounded by a moat.

The Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) was built by Shah Jahan between 1647 and 1653 as his private place of prayer. It was closed during my visit, but even from outside, the three white marble domes with their gilded finials are striking against the red sandstone.

The Taj Mahal in the distance, with the fort’s red sandstone walls curving below

A woman and girl resting at a marble pavilion, the Taj Mahal faintly visible behind them

The fort walls framed through a carved marble jali screen

The fort’s outer walls stretching into the distance, with a British-era railway bridge on the right

The Machchi Bhawan courtyard, once home to the emperor’s private gardens

Musamman Burj as seen from the Black throne of Jahangir at Agra Fort

A myna perched on a marble finial, the Taj Mahal rising from the haze across the Yamuna

The Diwan-i-Khas terrace, with the Taj Mahal in the far distance

The gate to the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque), closed to visitors during my trip

A white marble chhatri of the Moti Masjid peeking above the fort walls

The three white marble domes of the Moti Masjid, each topped with a gilded finial

Tree-lined pathway through the fort’s manicured gardens

Looking back toward the fort entrance from the garden pathway

Red sandstone battlements with arrow slits and a stairway to the ramparts

Five-Striped Palm Squirrels

These five-striped palm squirrels are everywhere inside the Agra Fort, and they have zero fear of humans. They’ll run right up your leg if they think you have food. According to Hindu legend, a squirrel helped Lord Rama build a bridge to Lanka by carrying small pebbles, and Rama stroked its back in gratitude, leaving the five stripes you see today.