Giza Pyramids vs. the Taj Mahal

Here I’ll be talking about the Pyramids under normal “nuisance” standards, not current “grave danger” standards (as described a few posts below this one, I don’t believe it is currently safe to go to the Pyramids unless on a large organized tour).

The Pyramids and the Taj Mahal are both among the ten most impressive things I’ve ever seen on the earth. But there is a strange reciprocal relation between the two sites.

Cairo (under normal circumstances) is quite a comfortable city for foreigners. Agra, India, home of the Taj Mahal, is not. If you arrive by train, you will be harassed from the moment you leave the station. I was practically chased down the street, and even the hotel desk clerk tried to harass me into hiring his cousin as a driver. And I’m not using the word “harass” lightly here– I ended up barricading my door in that hotel, for the first and only time in my life.

But once you get inside the walls of the Taj Mahal grounds, it is a peaceful, beautiful place. One is left to one’s own serene reflections on architectural beauty and bygone historical eras.

In Cairo, you get in trouble once you enter the Pyramid grounds; in Agra, you get out of trouble once you enter the Taj grounds.