Day two of the Agra trip

Day two of the Agra trip started a little slow since we were some what low on sleep (because of Bora :-p) but off we went in a rented car at 7am! 

The destination = Fatehpur Sikri!

 The stairs leading up to the entrance

 Bora and I at the 54 mt. high entrance called Buland Darwaza

 And here with the stairs behind us ready to go inside :-) As our guide repeated over and over again "If Akbar not become successful in getting a son here, there be no tomb and we not enjoy the trip today."

 Right outside the gate was these two water tanks and according to our guide, people used to jump from the top of the wall down into the bigger tank for the fun of it! 

 The entrance has three arched entrances and the largest one (seen above) is locally knows as the Horseshoe gate. The reason is that there was a custom of nailing horseshoes to its large wooden door for good luck!

Inside!

 An old man using his arms to move around the couryard

 Arches after arches going on for forever in this amazing construction  

The white marble encased tomb of Salim Chishti 

 A man washing himself in the water in front of the tomb (well as clean as you can get in green water!)

 One of the white marble graves that can be found in the courtyard... All the men are buried outside and all the women are buried inside!

 More graves outside (The white marble ones are for the immediate family to the King and the darker ones are for more distance family)

 I don't know where the squirrel would rank but at least he/she has plenty of food!

 The sunrise over the graves 

 The graves of the women inside

 Once again we where asked by our guide to look at the wall and these two pictures was the result! :-) In his own words "I no photographer, but I see where good picture and I take it for tourist pleasure."

 To go inside the tomb we had to by some cloth to sacrifice (given to the poor they said) and we would then be granted one wish each... You could wish for anything in the world but you were not allowed to tell anyone (except you wife/husband)... But since I'm not married to Bora or anyone else for that matter my wish will remain a secret ;-)

 We also tied a piece of rope to the window inside the tomb

 Back in the days, women were not allowed inside the tomb and could only watch through this small door!

 To get inside the tomb you had to get past this old man and I'm pretty sure he has been there since the beginning around 500 years ago ;-)

 Happy to be outside again!

 This was a place for prayers and another old man was in the middle of cleaning it when we where there!

 He was very focused in his cleaning ;-)

 The amazing view in the sunset

 Outside the tomb sitting pretty by the green water

 As you might remember from my trip to Taj Mahal, I sometimes become the tourist attraction and the same thing happened here! When we were leaving, a huge group of Indians spotted me and started taking pictures like crazy... I myself couldn't resist and started taking pictuers of them as well... It kind of backfired since it only got them even more excited! 

 We got out of there quickly only to see another very common thing here in India, children begging for money or trying to sell you things... Here is one example of a small child following us around trying to sell some cards... 

Sad but true...