Taj Mahal, A Site to See

Temperature Update: At time of posting (10:36PM) - 90 degrees, High for Today - 111 degrees.

I'm back!

A big thanks to Kenzie for updating the blog these last few days! You see, at our first hotel in New Delhi, they didn't have free wifi. Instead, they made you pay to use it and considering the prices weren't that cheap and the reliability wasn't for sure, I decided against it. However, our second hotel here in Agra, India doe shave free wifi!

We left New Delhi at about 7AM local time and it took us a little over 3 hours to drive to Agra. The main reason it took so long was because traffic in New Delhi is a nightmare and it took us 1.5 hours just to get out of the city and onto the highway. When we arrived in Agra, we visited another UNESCO World Heritage Site, Agra Fort. The present-day structure was built by the Mughals, though a fort had stood there since at least the 11th century. Agra Fort was originally a brick fort known as Badalgarh, held by Raja Badal Singh Hindu Sikarwar Rajput king (c. 1475). It was stunning to walk through this fort and it had an incredible view of the Taj Mahal. We only stayed here a little bit as for our main attraction was the aforementioned, Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–1658), to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The tomb is the centerpiece of a 42-acre complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. It is truly a remarkable site to see and incredible when you come to find out this was all done for his deceased wife! Our tour guide, Luv, told us it took approximately 20,000 workers over 22 years to finish the entire complex. Every single detail was done by hand and personally engraved into the marble. Pictures will unfortunately do this no justice because it is truly remarkable to see in person. On a side note, it was really stunning to see how dirty the locals were in regards to this pristine place. You were required to wear shoe covers when walking inside the main mausoleum and once you exited, the floor was littered with the shoes covers even though trash cans were nearby.

Tomorrow, we head off for Bharatpur where will visit a bird sanctuary and another UNESCO World Heritage site. We will only spend one night in the city before we head off to our final city of Jaipur. Supposedly, we are going to be staying in a total palace in one of the upcoming cities which should be awesome! More updates and pictures to follow assuming I have wifi access (hasn't been common so far!).

-Andrew