Delhi to Agra

  Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

7-12: I went back to Jama Masjid and it was well worth the double effort. I wouldn't consider it to be the most beautiful mosque I've seen but it certainly is the largest. Apparently it can hold 25,000 people. It has a huge courtyard with a "pool" in the middle where people can wash up.

Jama Masjid

Cleansing

I then went to Connaught Place which has a round park in the middle surrounded by a roundabout (one can definitely see the British influence with the roundabouts, driving on the opposite side of the street, and the metro signs are almost identical to the London underground signs) and streets stemming out from the park with high end shopping and restaurants. You can find a Levi's store, a Nike store, McDonalds, KFC, etc.

Connaught Place

I found a cheap Indian restaurant and started talking with this guy. He was born in India, raised in Seattle, educated in London, and now hopes to open hotels in India. We sat in the park for awhile and met later on for drinks at his friend's club. He's leaving for Kashmir Tuesday for a couple weeks and I may change my plans a bit to meet him up there for some hiking in the Himilayas.

7-13: Today I went to Lodi Garden, a large, beautiful park very well landscaped to relax, read and take a nice pleasant stroll.

Lodi Garden

7-14: Today I left for Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.

View of the Taj Mahal from the hotel rooftop

I hired a rickshaw driver today to take me to various sites around town. I'll visit the Taj tomorrow morning when I can get there for the sunrise. I first went to Agra Fort, the largest of the forts in India. Sorta like the Red Fort in Delhi but much bigger and more impressive. I'm not going to show you more than the one photo or tell you about the other sites I saw today because The Taj Mahal puts everything to shame and it takes awhile on these computers to upload pics onto the blog....especially with all of the power outages!

Agra Fort

Drying saris

7-15: The Taj Mahal opens at 6:00 AM so I got there bright and early to see the sunrise. Unfortunately it was so cloudy that I never actually saw the sunrise. But it was definitely worth getting there early to get pics without tons of bloddy tourists in them.

Breathtaking

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum and was built by a leader for his second wife (sucks for his first wife!) for her final resting place. I forgot my book in my room so I can't give you names or much detail here. If I remember correctly Taj means beautiful and Mahal means palace. It took 22 years and 20,000 men to build. She died before it was complete. He is buried next to her below the large dome but you can't see their tombs, they are well below ground. But they have built replicas inside, sorry no pics allowed inside. I overheard a tour guide say that it cost 6 million rupees to build, that's 240 million US dollars! And this was built in the 1500's.

It's completely made of white marble with very intricate inlay of real gems.

Detail of the marble inlay

These marble slabs are single pieces and are etched with various flowers.

Marble slab with etched flowers and inlay border

There is also Arabic inlayed in the marble with a gem called "star of India".

Close up of wall

Detail of corner

The minarets are built at a slight angle leaning away from the Taj Mahal so in case of an earthquake they will fall the opposite way. There are mosques on both sides made of a red marble.

One of two mosques on either side of the Taj Mahal

View from mosque

I have so many pics I can show you but I know they don't do it justice. The Taj Mahal is clearly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I know my words can't express its beauty either. It's just something you need to see for yourself to fully appreciate.

Namaste!
Jen