The Golden Triangle (Day 6)

May 25th

City Visiting: Agra
Today's High: 102 degrees

Today was the day we have all been waiting for. We rushed through breakfast and quickly made our way to the bus. The Taj Mahal was just down the road from our hotel so it took us no time before we were unloading our large 40 person bus into 3 smaller shuttles to get us up to the gate.

Once we made it to the stop off for the smaller shuttles, we then had to walk the next few blocks full of little shops and hawkers galore. We couldn't bring anything into the Taj Mahal except our camera and a bottle of water so there was no need to do any shopping until we got done.

on the smaller shuttle

Seth, Jed & I

Security wasn't too bad, pretty much the standard pat down and checking of possessions, and we were one step closer. Before getting to the actual Taj Mahal, there is a very large entryway structure called the Main Gate. It is very beautiful and does a great job of hiding the Taj Mahal and building excitement and suspense. Bhanu knew that he would never get all of us to pay attention once we walked through the Main Gate so he did a lot of his explaining before we got through.

The Main Gate

Ciby, Jed & I in front of the Main Gate

Once we finally got to walk through the Main Gate, it was truly breath taking to see this phenomenal structure. Words can not describe all the feelings and thoughts that came rushing to my head as I just stood there (with my jaw on the ground, I am sure) just taking in the fact that I was actually here, looking at something so magnificent that I never actually thought I would ever see any other way then in a book or on the internet. It took me a few minutes to get myself together and then the flurry of people, photo ops and crazy kicked in.

Olli, Denise, Jed & I

Bhanu did pull us over to the side before he let us all go to explain a little about the Taj Mahal. They say the Taj is "the ultimate expression of love". The main white marble structure is actually a mausoleum for Arjumano Banu Begum (or Mumtaz Mahal), she was the third wife of Emperor Shah Jahan.

Some of the other structures that help make The Taj spectacular are the minarets. The minarets are the four large pillar structures that surround the mausoleum. I think the most fascinating part about these minarets is that they all lean a few degrees away from the mausoleum so in the event of an earthquake or something causing them to topple, they will topple away from the mausoleum to ensure no damage to anything.

As you are looking at the Taj, to the left is a mosque and to the right is the Mihman Khana (or Assembly Hall). We spent some time walking around & in the mosque but the Mihman is still in use to this day so we could only walk around the building and take tons of pictures.There was also a museum on the grounds that we didn't have enough time to walk through.

mosque

Assembly Hall

Assembly Hall

The other incredibly impressive part of the grounds were just the gardens. The beautiful green grass areas, the walk ways and the fountains were so amazing to just walk through and sit on a bench and enjoy the entire experience.

The trip to The Taj wasn't with out a few hiccups and hilarious stories, of course. Pretty quickly after we got in, Bhanu had a photographer that took a group pictures for us and then offered to take individual pictures afterwards. We did stick around to have it done but we didn't like all the "traditional" positions he was having people sit and stand so we were a little more ourselves and he wasn't so sure what to do with us.

Our attempt at "serious"

Gate 1 Group Photo

As we were walking away from that we were sucked into having a photo guide. This is a guy that took us around to show us the "best spots" to take pictures. He did have some great spots but we couldn't lose the guy. After about 20-30 minutes of our 2 hour free time eaten up we went our separate ways and he was not very happy with us at the end. And half way through our time with our photo guide tour, the nice big camera battery died. We knew it was coming because I realized one of the first days in India that I had forgotten the charger and there is no Wal-mart or Best Buy in India where you can just go buy a new one so we were up a creek. Thankfully we traveled with two cameras so all was not lost but it was a bummer that we couldn't use that second, nicer, fancier camera.

The hilarious part of being at The Taj were the people. People were fascinated with people that were not Indian. They wanted to take pictures with you. Not just you and that person, but you and that person and there ENTIRE family. Oh it was so fun and so funny. Everyone was very nice, very respectful and it was such a cool experience that really made the trip that much more incredible. The best was when there were a group of 20 - 30 guys that all wanted to take a picture with Jed and I. I had to turn the camera on them and take a selfie of as many of them as we could all fit in the frame.

Our trip to the Taj absolutely exceeded all of our expectations and was 100% worth the trip to India. I think this day will always feel like a dream, just like it did as we were walking around trying to take it all in.

Mr. & Mrs. Chanez, Jed & I (they took the trip for their 50th anniversary!)

Canzina, Laurelyn, Jed & I

Hailey, Brian, Jed & I

The two hours of free time at the Taj was over in no time and we were headed back our the Main Gate and heading back to our bus where again, we were met with plenty of hawkers trying to sell us all things Taj Mahal. After a little "shopping" from our bus seats, we were headed to our next stop for the day. After seeing the Taj Mahal, they wanted to give us a closer look at how it was really made so they took us to a marble factory.

We had the chance to learn a little about how the Taj Mahal was built and all the work and detail that went into making it all. There were demonstrations and of course a chance to buy very expensive marble everything. We walked through the shops and continued to talk about where we had just come from and what we just saw. The marble factory wasn't all that impressive but it didn't matter, we were still on Cloud 9 and we had fun clowning around as we waited for everyone to finish shopping.

After the marble factory, we headed back to the hotel to hang out a little before our afternoon tour. This was about the time that Jed started to get sick. We laid low for a little while and relaxed for about 30 minutes in the pool. Neither of us were feeling like food was a good idea so we snacked a little before hoping back onto the bus for the afternoon tour. By this point in the vacation, we weren't the only ones that were starting to feel the affects of the food, heat, dehydration & lack of sleep. So we were a few people down for the tour.

Our first stop on our afternoon tour was Agra Fort. This fort was full of courtyards, gardens, huge open area rooms and beautiful architecture and details. With each fort comes new stories, new history and different views of the surrounding areas.

There were a ton of bats in the fort

One of the interesting stories about this fort was this fort at one time belonged to Emperor Shah Jahan (the guy that built the Taj). At the end of his life it has been said that his son, Aurangzeb, took over as Emperor and held his father as a prisoner in part of the fort that over looked the Taj.

As we were exploring this area of the fort, a monkey came running in and cause a huge scene. It startled quite a few but it was pretty funny watching this monkey go a little bonkers.

From this fort there were impressive views of the Taj Mahal. That building never got old to just look at and take one million pictures of.

Our final stop was at the tomb of Itmad ud Daulah, also known as the Baby Taj. The Baby Taj is set right on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was wild to ride over the river and see all the kids playing and bathing in the river right along with all the livestock that come here to keep cool in the heat and all the piles of garbage that get thrown into the river.

There was a large gate as we approached the tomb and an adorable group of school children that were there on what we could only assume to be a field trip and they were all so excited to see us. They all walked around practicing their English saying, "Hello, what is your name?" and shaking our hands. It was just too cute.

Baby Taj was super cute and we enjoyed wanting around the beautiful gardens and around the detailed building. We watched as more wild monkeys and there babies played in the grass and trees. Jed and I wandered around the grounds to a structure right on the Yamuna River, it didn't take us long over there to get crept out and quickly find a different area to explore.

This was the only place we went that we ran into people that were not awesome. A few of us had some issues with 3 teenage boys that wanted their pictures taken with just females and tried to get handsy. It was disappointing but we weren't going to let that small hiccup ruin the excursion.

After our afternoon tour it was time to head back to the hotel for a quick break from the heat and get ready to head out for our Bollywood dinner.

Dinner tonight was in a local restaurant. They gave us the back room where we had music, crazy lights and a Bollywood dancer with dinner. She did a great job and it was so fun to watch and to listen to the music.

By far the most exciting part of the evening was get henna tattoos. It was that last thing that a lot of us wanted to do before we left India and we were all over the moon to get them. Even Jed got in on the action!

Jed and I both decided to try to start eating again and we were not disappointed in the amazing food. It was all so good! We ended the evening with a small fireworks display which was just perfect.

After the evening of dinner, dancing, henna and fireworks, we made our way back to the bus and the hotel. But before we all headed back to our rooms to pack all of our stuff up, Fernando, Ciby, Jess, Cassandra, Jed & I spent some time in the hotel bar laughing, talking and learning so much from Bhanu. We were all so glad to have that time. Learning about people, cultures and life is just so fascinating to me and one of the things I absolutely love about traveling.

Screwing around in the hotel lobby