After remaining on my bucket list for years, I finally made it the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the modern world, this past Wednesday. This immense mausoleum was built on the orders of Shah Jahan, the fifth Muslim Mogul emperor, to honor the memory of his beloved late wife, in the 1600's and it took 22 years to complete using more than 25,000 workers.
What was truly amazing was to see how intricate the stone work appeared. While the images of flowers, etc., appear to be paintings, they are actually small stone carvings that are attached to the marble after being sanded down to fit the design.
The drive from New Delhi takes about three hours in car and is highly uneventful. To get to the Taj Mahal, you must pass through the city of Agra, which is very much like a mini New Delhi, with abject poverty everywhere you look.
Thankfully, the heat wave with temperatures exceeding 110 degrees every day for weeks, broke the day I arrived and it was only about 80 degrees. Best of all, it was off season so it wasn't as mobbed as I expected it to be. The only downside is that they are doing reconstruction on some of the surrounding towers, so that took away from some of the photos.
Click here to see more pictures from my visit to the Taj Mahal and Agra.
No comments:
Post a Comment