India – Taj Mahal, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri with kids

Top places to visit in and near Agra
How to get there
Duration of the visit
When to visit
Tips and Tricks
The story of our adventures visiting India- Taj Mahal in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri

Top places to visit in and around Agra

• Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a beautiful mausoleum commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1632 AD for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal when she died in child birth of their fourteenth child.  It is ivory in color, built with marble and precious and semi-precious stones, constructed by over 20,000 laborers taking about 17 years to complete.  It is located by the side of the Yamuna river and is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If there is time for only one monument to see in Agra in your itinerary, this is the one to visit!

• Agra Fort

The Agra Fort or the Red Fort of Agra is a powerful fort built with red sandstone close to the Taj Mahal with more than a mile of tall walls that protected the city from invasion.  The fort houses multiple palaces and mosques and was the place from where the Mughal emperors ruled their empire till 1638 AD.

• Tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah(also known as baby Taj)

The tomb of Itmad-ud-daula is the first tomb in India that is entirely made out of marble. Before this tomb, they were typically built with the red sand stone as the rest of the buildings in the Mugal period. This mausoleum overlooks the River Yamuna and is a tomb of Mir Ghiyas Beg, a minister in the court of emperor Jahangir and also the father of his wife.

• Akbar’s Tomb

Akbar’s tomb is the final resting place of Akbar, one of the most powerful emperors of the Mughal empire. The tomb is a great example of the architecture of the Mughal period  built with red sandstone and marble. It is located in Sikandra, about 14 kms from the Taj Mahal.

• Sadar Bazar – Shopping for handicrafts

If you have some shopping to do, this is where the locals and tourists head to for handicrafts, leather and other memorabilia. It is close to the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. Evening tends to be crowded but fun with lots of nice restaurants to choose from and the price of everything is up for negotiation!

• Fatehpur Sikri

Fatehpur Sikri the capital city of the Mughal empire built by emperor Akbar.  Fateh means “Victory” in Urdu and was built after a significant victory over the Rajputs.  It has palaces, a mosque, living quarters and many other buildings and was the primary seat of power of the Mughal empire from 1571 to 1585 AD. It is located at an hour’s drive from Agra towards Jaipur.

How to get there:

Agra is about an 4 hours drive from New Delhi and 4-5 hours drive from Jaipur. Together, these 3 cities form what is called the Golden Triangle.  Most people do a 4-5 day trip to Agra and Jaipur by road originating from New Delhi.  There are many tour operators and travel agents who will arrange the trip for you including accommodations and its not much more expensive than traveling by yourself.

Duration of the visit

Most people tend to stay in Agra for about a day. It is enough time to visit Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and one other monument.  Taj Mahal and banks of the river Yamuna look beautiful during sunrise and sunset, so you may want to plan your visit to Taj Mahal around sunrise or sunset. It is also cooler at those times so that would be another reason to visit at those times during the warm days.  With young kids, we did not stay till the sunset but returned in time to get some early dinner and a hot shower and a nice long rest after a full day’s drive.

When to visit

Northern India tends to get extremely hot during the summer months with peak temperature going over 105 F.  The best time to visit is during cold and dry season of November through March where the temperature ranges from 30 F to 60 F.  July and August are monsoon months of high humidity and rains and best avoided for a tourist visit.  End of December through January has little visibility in the morning due to heavy fogs so the travel will be affected.  It would be a good idea to plan for more time for the car drive or train delays in the morning during these months.

Tips and Tricks

• Taj Mahal is open everyday from sunrise to sunset except on Fridays. Taj Mahal is CLOSED on Fridays because of afternoon prayers.
• Strollers, milk bottles and other baby stuff
  • All baby stuff including baby strollers are allowed inside the monument.  It may not be allowed inside the mausoleum but one person can stay outside with the stuff while the rest of the party goes through.  However, a baby carrier might be more useful and easier to handle than a stroller.
• Tour Guide for Taj Mahal
  • While its nice to have a tour guide explain the history of the Taj Mahal, there are many outside the entrance who will charge a fraction of the cost the travel agents charge for the same service. Its best to hire them at the spot.
• Time for visit
  • Early morning is the least crowded time during the day and so the best time to visit the Taj.  You get to take enjoy the peace and quiet as you marvel at the architecture and the history of the place and get pictures without dozens of people in your frame as a bonus!
  • During hot weather, early morning and late afternoon are also the coolest of times to visit.
• Safety
  • Keep your valuables close and your camera in a safe hold.
  • Keep your children close, especially in crowded places. Its easy to get get pulled away. Keep your hotel and contact information on your kids in case they get separated.
  • There are many monkeys in the area who will lunge at you to get at anything that looks like food.  Avoid packing any kind of food in your day pack. It gets opened at the security check at the entrance.
• Food and drinks
  • It is unsafe to drink any water that comes from an unsealed bottled water.  The water is not safe for consumption for visitors as our bodies are not immune to the bacteria in it. I would avoid ice for the same reason.
  • It would be safer to eat only cooked food in a restaurant that looks reasonably clean.  I would avoid eating from a cart or a hole in a corner type of place. More than food preparation, we feel that we can’t trust the cleanliness of glasses, plates, utensils, etc.
  • Avoid salad as well as that is uncooked and can cause food poisoning if not properly washed.
  • Allergens are not well documented on packets, so in case of doubt, avoid it.
• Shopping
  • Price of everything being sold is up for negotiation.  It’s a good idea to offer half the quoted price and go from there.
• Professional Photographers for hire
  • There are plenty of so called “profession photographers” inside and outside the Taj Mahal offering to take your pictures or offering to shoot them with your camera for a price. Be wary of these offers, our “professional photographer” took pictures of us with the Taj with our DSLR, on automatic setting, and got the Taj tilted in every single picture!

The story of our adventures

Car drive from New Delhi to Agra turned out to be a breeze for the first 3 hours as we went flying through the wide open lanes of the Taj Express Highway.  Car seats or seat belts are neither required nor the norm in the back seats of the cars. So the kids had a great time hanging upside down and doing anything they felt like in the back seat!

We had planned to go straight to the Taj Mahal when we arrived in Agra. However, the traffic got really bad as we got close to the city and we ended up taking close to 6 hours reaching the vicinity of Taj Mahal.

While we waited for our lunch, we were entertained by a magician walking around and entertaining people with magic tricks.  He even had some tricks to show and sell!  We later found that a lot of restaurants near the Taj Mahal have in-house entertainment and there are some locals outside selling handicrafts and outfitted for some photo op for tourists.

Finally, with their tummy full and having gotten a break from the drive, the smiles were back and they were ready to have some fun.  Yuri had a great time posing with local boys for pictures like this.

Taj Mahal

At the entrance of the Taja Mahal, after getting the tickets, we had to go through the security check where they check the bags for illegal items like food, knives or other objects like that. Eating and smoking are not allowed inside.  There are a lot of monkeys at the check point and it feels a little intimidating to have them sitting and staring at you.   Do NOT keep any food in your bags to avoid having them attack you for a snack.

The first view of the Taj Mahal just takes your breath away.  It is hidden from view by the red sandstone walls and the entrance gate. Walking through the gates, you see wide gardens surrounding the Taj Mahal with hundreds of people walking around.  It gets hard to take a picture without anyone else in it.

We managed to find a small window to take pictures and kids had a great time posing for them :).  Holding the Taj by its top minaret is a common pose, I am not sure what Yuri’s apeman pose was all about!  But he was pretending to be a goat during that trip so it may just have been an animal instinct 🙂

Once on the main Taj Mahal floor, we were given shoe covers to wear on top of our shoes.  There is also an area where someone will watch your shoes for a small price but I would not leave any shoes that I was not prepared to lose.

It was great walking around on the first level on the beautiful and very cool marble floors as we enjoyed the views of the gardens, the mosques and the Yamuna river surrounding the Taj Mahal.

It was amazing to see the intricate work on the marble and the inlays with precious and semi precious stone all over the building in perfect symmetry.  There are Arabic verses carved on the walls with absolute perfection.

Growing up, we had heard that the construction of Taj was so perfect and so amazing that the emperor Shah Jahan had the arms of the twenty thousand laborers amputated and made arrangements to have their families taken care of for the rest of their lives. Turns out the story is totally fabricated!

 

We ended up staying at the Taj Mahal for about five hours instead of three as planned, so ran out of time to see Agra Fort that day.  Since we planned to visit Amer Fort in Jaipur in a couple of days, we ended up going straight back to the hotel, after a short detour to McDonald’s.  Getting their favorite dinner after a long hot shower at the hotel made the kids really happy!

Fatehpur Sikri

We headed off to Jaipur in the morning, stopping at Fatehpur Sikri en-route. Fatehpur Sikri was built by the Mughal emperor Akbar after his victory (“Fateh”) over the Rajput king in the seventeenth century.  He established it as his capital city during his reign.

As we got close to the entrance, we were inundated by tour guides.  Since it was a short stop, we decided to do a quick tour by ourselves instead. Again, we needed to leave our shoes outside the gate.

Fatehpur Sikri is a beautiful fort like enclosure made of red sandstone like the other buildings of this period.  There is a mosque, a small cemetery, living quarters and even a post office that functioned through the carrier pigeons!

Inside the mausoleum, people tie red strings around the grills, asking for a wish.  When the wish comes true, the custom dictates that you go back and take a thread off.

We tied a thread to follow the custom, may have made a wish or two :).  Everyone has to cover their heads inside this building. They have plastic caps for those that don’t have a scarf or a handkerchief to cover their head. We also got talked into buying a colorful blanket to lay onto the coffin inside.

At the back side of the city of Fatehpur Sikri, the walls of the fort have these “mailboxes”, where the homing carrier pigeons brought the mail in, back in the seventeenth century. Its so easy in places like these to close your eyes and imagine yourself back in time four hundred years ago.

We also bought a cool souvenir of carved elephant inside a bigger carved elephant.  There are a lot of local people carving these inside Fatehpur Sikri as well as outside and in shops throughout this area.

Also see – Traveling to India