More Taj Mahal

Today's post reviews more of our time at the Taj Mahal. This first picture is of the family outside the main gate of the Taj (a strucutral marvel itself). In Mughal times, courtesans would shower royal visitors with flower petals as they passed through the gate and musicians would bang ceremonial drums and blow trumpets. All we were greeted with were jostling Indian and Chinese tourists elbowing us out of the way so they could take pictures of the Taj in the distance.

This is me getting ready to mount the giant marble plinth on which the Taj sits. For purposes of preservation, all visitors are required to either take off their shoes or wear cloth booties over their feet when they step up to the Taj. My dad promptly ripped his booties trying to get them on and subsequently had to drag himself around the Taj flat-footed so they would not fall off his shoes.

One of two giant red-standstone mosques to either side of the Taj. One was used as a working mosque in its day. This one, however, was never used and still sits empty and dormant. It was built for the express purpose of 'balancing' the real mosque on the other side, so that the entire complex retained its precise architectural symmetry. I hope they didn't tell the men who built this mosque that it was essentially useless.



This image of us in front of the Taj is our front-runner for next year's Christmas card.

Our guide Ashu, who did a superb job taking us around both the Taj Mahal and the nearby Agra Fort. He runs an IT business but does the guide work as a rather lucrative 'hobby'.



Jenna in the Agra Fort. The doorway over her left shoulder is the door that--as legend has it--Mumtaz Mahal walked through when she was spied by Emperor Shah Jehan for the first time. The legend goes that he instantly fell in love with her and then, of course, upon her death several years later commissioned the building of the Taj Mahal. (Legend leaves out Shah Jehan's other wives, his courtesans, and his apparent bouts of incest with his daughter.)


This picture was taken from the eastern terraces of Agra Fort overlooking the Yamuna River. In between my mom and Jenna, if you strain your eyes, you can see the Taj Mahal in the distance.