BELIEVE IT OR NOT?

Any guesses where we went??? You guessed it, the Taj Mahal, one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. In spite of being a little smaller than I had imagined, (apparently I have a big imagination), it was BEAUTIFUL! The Taj is a pretty amazing piece of architecture. For those of you who don't know its history I'll give you a brief low-down.

The Taj Mahal (translated: crown palace) was built as a memorial by Shah Jahan for his favorite wife Mumtez Mahal. She died very young (39 I believe) and asked him to make her two promises before her death; 1) Not to ever marry another and 2) build her a beautiful memorial of their love. My kind of girl!

Anyway, we left at about 5:15am with our partners in crime (the McIllece family; Dave, Angela, Zach, Becca, Alyson, & Daniel) who have been here in Delhi about 1 month longer than us. So the 12 of us loaded up and headed out. It wasn't too long of a drive on the way there and there were plenty of packed rickshaws, camel convoys, water buffalo, dancing monkeys and elephants to keep us entertained. One of the most interesting sights was of several over-stuffed tractors or trucks hauling what looked like hay or straw. The canvas holding in the straw looked as if it were a petite size nylon holding in a queen size butt.

Once we arrived we rode on a camel cart up to the Taj entrance while being accosted on all sides by vendors and dealers of everything imaginable; toy snakes, marble boxes, necklaces, bracelets, postcards, you name it they were trying their hardest to sell it to us for at least 5 times its value. The only useful item they were selling was umbrellas, which we paid 200rs for, about $5. We were told they were new but when we got them we laughed at the obvious distress they showed, but they were a useful sun block for our hours of fun in the sun. Our friend Dave speaks Hindi and was able to alleviate a little of the vendors harassment by telling them "ENOUGH!", in Hindi of course, and although it didn't get rid of it completely, it helped.

When we arrived at the Taj entrance we paid our 20rs to get in, which is about 50 cents thanks to our diplomatic IDs. Normal tourist have to pay 750 rs (about $20). We then had to stand in separate lines, one for women and one for men. This is after all, a Muslim monument. The men's line, like the bathrooms, were faster than the women's line. The heat and humidity was relentless but we forged ahead. Dave arranged for a tour guide who was pretty good in spite of what seemed to be a bit of an aggressive nature. He would get a bit irritated with us if we asked questions too soon or didn't stay together...easy big fella! :)

Taking pictures was great and I loved the ones of the kids touching the spire of the Taj(above). We trudges around for several hours, a couple of which were bare foot on very warm marble, it was definitely worth seeing (just not in August). The construction of the entire compound is perfectly symmetrical which is absolutely amazing given it was finished in 1653 (22 yrs after its groundbreaking). It is truly a site to behold. I learned today that Indians categorize people by those who have seen the Taj Mahal and those who have not. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I am now a part of the latter group so....its all good.

After we left the Taj we were toast! Ding, ding were done! We stopped off at a restaurant for what turned out to be an amazing meal of naan bread, butter chicken (my favorite), rice, shiz-ka-bobb, vegetables and chicken tikka. The food was great and they had a trio of singers and dancers to entertain us. One little boy was especially cute and could put a few of Micheal Jacksons moves to shame. I wonder where he learned the pelvic thrust? He tried to convince many of us to join him but the only one brave enough was Becca.

After lunch we visited one more monument (left), of which I would love to tell you all kinds of fascinating history, but I don't know any. We piled out one more time in the sweltering heat and walked like pioneers up and back. This tomb had a huge garden that seemed to be home to a pack of playful monkeys and a lazy herd of antelope. Made for some good photo opps.

Once again we piled back into the vehicles and headed for home. The drive home took us approx. twice the amount of time as our arrival trip. Luckily our a/c was working perfectly which was more than could be said for the McIllece vehicle, who's a/c petered out an hour or so before arriving home. I would have killed myself I think, but they all fared well, including Tyson and MaKaela who were riding with them.

It was a great trip and I can't wait to do it again but during a much more weather friendly time of year. Despite the heat it was still crowded so I'm happy to report we weren't the only nut jobs out there! :)

PS I have a lot of pictures to upload and it may take me a couple days to get them all up so keep checking back for more pictures of our amazing trip to the Taj! Don't forget to leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you!