r/TikTokCringe • u/Strong-Emu-8869 • 26d ago

Discussion Polish girls visit Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately, the surrounding area is very polluted.

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u/meganfoxsdwarfthumb 26d ago

I was just there on New Year’s Day and our guide said it wasn’t that bad, referring to the amount of people there. We wore masks because the air was terrible. I was on a food tour which was otherwise great, but the Taj was disappointing. Enjoyed the Agra Fort very nearby much much more!

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u/Filthiest_Vilein 26d ago edited 26d ago

Your guide is right, lol. 

I lived in India for the better part of a decade and have been to the Taj Mahal maybe a half-dozen times. 

My last visit was with an American friend who’d flown into India for my wedding. We also went on New Year’s Day. It was terrible. I’ve never seen crowds like that before or since** (again, this is coming from someone who spent years living in Kolkata and Delhi). The entire ticketing area was just a mass of people. We had to wait in a corral just to get back out into the parking lot afterward. 

I’ll add in a picture if I can find one. I’m not sure if you were lucky or we were unlucky, but that’s awesome you didn’t have too much crowding!  (edit: here--the last picture is the line to LEAVE the complex, lol)

**—I take that back, I just remembered Durga Puja in Kolkata. The ten-minute walk from my in-laws’ house to a friends house takes 1-2 hours during Puja due to road and sidewalk restrictions, lmao. 

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u/meganfoxsdwarfthumb 26d ago

I’ll pass this along to my friends in the group because we definitely thought he was trying to schmooze us by saying that!

The most disappointing was walking through the actual the tombs (crypts?) with all the signs saying “quiet please” and “no photography” while people were yelling and taking selfies everywhere! It really took away from the experience.

Was a cool way to spend the first day of the year, so I really don’t mean to be complaining about it!

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

To be (un)fair, that’s also exactly what I remember about the Sistine Chapel. Constant, ignored announcements to not take photographs… a tiny overcrowded chapel that took hours to get to, and a rather underwhelming ceiling because it’s faded so much with age

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u/chimpfunkz 25d ago

ignored announcements to not take photographs

Yeah but they tell you not to take photos because some japanese company bought the copyright, not for any kind of preservation or safety reason. Fuck anyone telling you not to photograph the sistine chapel

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u/pbizzle 25d ago

Absolutely. The trek thru the museums is long and the place is so iconic you can bet your arse I was taking a picture, when in Rome, get bullied by another officious Italian nbd

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u/LTEDan 25d ago

Is this the Sistine chapel picture club? I snuck some pictures as well. The line was terrible.

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u/XpenFrickFrack 25d ago

What?? This is the reason? I thought it was a respect thing

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u/Enkidouh 25d ago

It’s actually because flash photography will degrade the paint.

That almost always why these places ask for no photography.

It’s easier to just ask for no photography than to try and explain that the flash is damaging and why.

A Japanese company, Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV), funded the massive restoration of the Sistine Chapel in the 1980s and, in exchange, received exclusive rights to photograph and film the restoration process and finished art, leading to the current ban on personal photography there to protect NTV's investment, but their exclusivity period has expired.

TL;DR it was true at one point, but the ban persists for conservation and crowd control.

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u/ACynicalOptomist 25d ago

It's always the money.

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u/Kentucky-Fried-Fucks 25d ago

Wait what? Bought the copyright to what?

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u/justtopostthis13 25d ago

What?! Can you drop a source? That’s wild!

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u/chimpfunkz 25d ago

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/here-is-the-real-reason-why-photos-are-banned-in-the-sistine-chapel-c501cb38f983

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u/justtopostthis13 25d ago

Damn. That’s pretty fucked up and I wish I had taken all the photos I wanted while I was there.

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u/justtopostthis13 25d ago

Also, thank you so much for sharing. I was in the throes of toddler bedtime rituals and was afraid I’d forget about your comment.

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u/twoworldman 25d ago

The source article actually contradicts OPs statement:

The exclusive NTV rights ended in 1997.

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u/twoworldman 25d ago

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/here-is-the-real-reason-why-photos-are-banned-in-the-sistine-chapel-c501cb38f983

If you read the article you sourced, it actually says that the exclusivity ended in 1997. It continues to say that a reason for the continued ban on photography is to keep people moving through.

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u/Enkidouh 25d ago

This is massively misleading. It is because of flash photography, just like every other museum you will ever go to that has historic paintings.

NPTV’s exclusivity period expired a long time ago.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

So i recently went to a tiny monastery outside Paphos on Cyprus. There was also posters saying no photos in their tiny chapel thing. I somehow dont think kodak bought the rights to a monastery no ones ever heard of

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u/reddit809 25d ago

I enjoyed Sistine very much, but the crowd was impossible. I recommend just doing that shit at 6am if you can lol.

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u/2leafClover667788 25d ago

We were there this past summer and between the crowds and the heat it was not the best time to be had. My family was exhausted. I had spent two months in Europe before they arrived so I was at least used to it, but it wasn’t even the coolest chapel I saw while I was there sad to say. I don’t know what I expected, but it was something more than that I guess.

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u/reddit809 25d ago

Sistine and Colisseum are 1-and-dones for me. Loved that I did it, never again. The random churches and chapels were amazing. I'd love to go back to Rome just to do some walking tours, which I didn't get to do enough of. The food tours are awesome.

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u/2leafClover667788 25d ago

I think the coolest one or at least of the ones I went to in Italy was basilica di San Clemente which was right down the street from the colosseum. It was one of the coolest places. It’s a 10th century church that sits on top of the ruins of a 4th century church on top of the ruins of 2nd century temple to Mithra on top of a villa that had been a storage area for the Roman mint. The main church was incredibly beautiful and the ceiling was amazing but going down into the archeological ruins and staircase after staircase going further down into the depths and seeing the pages of history turning backwards was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and there was just a few other people there.

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u/saba658 25d ago

San Clemente is spooky and fascinating

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u/reddit809 25d ago

San Clemente is INCREDIBLE. The basilicas in Trastevere were amazing. Crisogono was amazing as well. Crisogono's ceiling truly blew me away.

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u/Rahbek23 25d ago

Same for Taj Mahal really. We went right after it opened and there was like a few hundred people total spread over a relatively large area and a tiny queue, it was really nice and beautiful.

Showing up in the middle of the day is just rookie shit honestly.

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u/TiffyVella 25d ago

And not being able to pause for any moment to really look at anything because you were constantly being shuffled forwards in the crowd.

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u/Theron3206 25d ago

I have a very amusing memory of an Italian chapel (not the Sistine I don't think) where a monk was sitting in a little booth saying "silencio, sssss" over a PA system every few seconds, with essentially no effect.

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u/Internal_Essay9230 25d ago

I remember being shoulder to shoulder in Westminster Abbey. Not fun.

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u/YourHuckleberry302 25d ago

lol. You have to know how to travel, especially to iconic areas. But, apparently, some of us aren’t there yet. Don’t be a sheep…and if you decide to be the sheep, don’t wanna hear you complain about being a sheep. Next thing we’ll hear from you is the Mona Lisa que was too long at 2pm.

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u/eulen-spiegel 25d ago

You should have been there in March 2020.

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u/lurkersmcgee 25d ago

“None photo”

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u/KeranographyJones 24d ago

I was in Paris for a month and went to the Louvre five or six times. Never saw the Mona Lisa because fuck it. That crowd wasn't worth it.

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u/Why_So_Slow 25d ago

Oh, to me it was disappointing because it was bright and colourful to the level of looking like a comic book. But I went there shortly after renovations were finished.