My First Flight Trip & Travel to Delhi-Agra-Rajasthan-Manali (Part 3)

The ambience was serene and peaceful. We entered the main temple of Mathura and found it to be very neat and clean. When we saw the jail room, when Lord Krishna was born, it felt surreal. I remember getting goosebumps. The feeling was too special to describe in words. Unfortunately, we didn’t get more than a couple of minutes in that room, since the list of pilgrims standing in line to enter was too long. I would have liked to spend more time inside in that holy environment.

Next, we had the dry-fruit Prasad, and left for Vrindavan. By 1 PM, we were there. We took the services of a priest and a tour guide as well. The priest informed us that the gates of Prem Mandir were currently closed. Between 4:30 PM to 8:30 PM, gates are open for darshan again next. Sadly, we couldn’t wait for 3 hours, as we had to leave for Agra.

He asked us to take care of our spectacles, as the monkeys in the area are known to snatch them. In just a couple of minutes after Pandit Ji’s warning, a monkey tried to snatch the glasses that my mausi was wearing. Somehow, Pandit Ji managed to recover them! We all had a good laugh.

Next, we prayed at a temple near Prem Mandir. We offered some dakshina to the priest and left for Agra.

It was around 3 PM that we reached Agra Fort. The area was teeming with foreign nationals. I conversed with some of them and asked about their experience in India.

We were told that the closing time for the fort was 4:30 PM. This meant that we had just an hour. So we went directly to the balcony where we were told we could view the Taj Mahal.

Next, we hired a guide and the person told us about many interesting facts about the fort.

But when we reached the hotel, the staff told us that the next day being Friday, the gates of the Taj Mahal would be closed. I quickly checked online and found that the Taj Mahal’s closing time was 6:30 PM. We still had about 1.5 hours in hand! We hired a guide and went to see the Taj Mahal the same day.

We quickly booked the tickets, and the guide took us directly to the Taj Mahal’s entrance. Finally, the Mahal was right in front of me. It was a major goosebump moment. All my life I had heard about the Taj, seen its pictures and videos. But nothing ever comes close to seeing the Taj for yourself. I recommend everyone to make it a point to visit the Taj at least once.

The guide told us about some of the amazing facts about the Taj Mahal, and we also clicked some pictures for memory’s sake. We also went inside the Taj Mahal. But we got very little time to explore it.

At exactly 6:30 PM, we exited the Taj Mahal and headed straight to the hotel. By this time, everyone was tired and hungry. All of us freshened up at the hotel, and our driver took us to a pure veg restaurant, where he had a blissful dinner. We reached the hotel around 10PM.

The plan for the next day was to start early, at 8 PM, as we had to leave for Jaipur next morning. Stay tuned to read the experience of the remaining days of the trip in my upcoming blogs.