Day 2 : Sunday, Feb 15th - Agra

-----. That was me...speechless. Did you hear it? You can guess what we did today...The Taj Mahal! We got picked up by Raj, our driver, at 7 am. We were given bags with our itinerary, postcards, water, it was so cute! The hotel gave us a packed breakfast, and we were off! We just kept our eyes on the scenery on the way there, passing the small villages, cows, crop fields, and of course temples. We stopped 1/2 through so Raj could pay a special tax and so we could grab a quick snack. The whole trip is about 4.5 hours, so it was nice to get our and stretch our legs. I got so many compliments on my Saree! The people at the rest stop wanted to know how much I paid and were impressed by my good shopping deal. As we got closer to the Taj we picked up our guide, Kamil. We got to the parking area and had to board a special battery operated bus. There are no factories in Agra and no cars are allowed in a certain distance for protection of the Taj Mahal. (Pretty amazing, huh?) As we entered through security we got to the outside area of the Taj. Here was where there were 124 rooms that Shah Jahan allowed the poor to take turns sleeping in and he gave them food and shelter.
There are three gates that lead into the Taj. We entered the east gate, and as you walk through the gate the Taj is just placed perfectly in the center of your view. It couldn't have been more perfect. I didn't think I could feel anymore admiration or love for India as I do, but a whole new feeling emurged in me as we saw the Taj. We had the most beautiful day as well, blue skies; no fog, no clouds. The Taj looked sparkling white against the blue sky. We immediately began snapping shots as we walked around the outside of the gardens. There weren'that many tourists walking around the outside of the gardens so we could enjoy the view on our own. We took a seat on a bench, and the whole time Kamil talked about the history of the Taj (which I had already known thanks to my Timurid and Mughal art class and Professor O'Brien) I kept on thinking "wow, here I am, sitting on a bench in front of THE Taj Mahal in India, with Mom...wow". We finally climbed the stairs to the platform. There are a lot more stairs than it looks like, the Taj placed pretty high. We got close to the engravings on the marble and got in line to see the cenotaphs of Shah Jahan and his wife. For a brief history lesson, listen up: building of the Taj began around 1632 and was completed around 1653. It is actually a mausoleum, a tomb, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal who died in child birth. It is therefore considered the symbol of love. The gardens I said we walked through are called Chahar Bagh which is a four-fold garden. The four pieces are actually split up again into four sections giving 16 separated sections of garden area. SO anyway, we saw the cenotaphs and looked at all the engravings. We went out the back and looked at the river which most people forget sits to the back of the Taj. While we were out back a woman asked me to take my picture infront of the Taj (a lot of Indians really like seeing Westerners in Sarees). I asked her to take one with me! We walked around a bit more, seeing the guest house and then walked back up to leave.
When we left the Taj we went to a special place. Apparently there is only one family that holds the secret on how to make the gem-stone inlay on marble that is found on the Taj. Their secret has been passed down and they still do this same work and help repair the Taj when needed. Well, we got a tour of where they do their work. We got to see a demonstration and then they kindly allowed us to purchase whatever we wanted, haha. Their work was beautiful. They use all types of stones from Turquoise to Mother of Pearl, even something called Fire-stone which glows when a light is placed on it. We had a fun time looking at all the pieces. After that we went to see how Indian carpets are made. It was really fun to see the process. Again we were kindly offered to view the selection, but we were less interested in the carpets, we were ready for Fatehpur Sikri! Fatehpur Sikri was the political capital of India's Mughal Empire under Akbar's reign, from 1571 until 1585 (when it was abandoned due to lack of water).
We headed through some crazy busy streets! Our car was brushing up against people, even mothers with their children, so we could squeeze through and get to a more main street. Even I couldn't believe the amount of people walking on these streets. We finally squeezed through and started out through the country to Fatehpur Sikri. We got there luckily just before the sunset. We had time to walk around. The complex is so much harder to decipher when you're actually walking around in it! It's so spread out! All the buildings have such intricate designs and engravings and we were constantly snapping pictures. Our favorite part was seeing the different houses given to Akbar's wives. Akbar had a Muslim wife, a Hindu wife, and a Christian wife. All three got very different housing structures; The Hindu wife had the biggest structure (she had given Akbar his one and only male child), the Christian wife's was the second largest, and the Muslim wife had the smallest house BUT it was the most ornamented. The whole thing had the most intricate carvings into the stone and we spent a lot of time looking at all of them closely. As we were leaving we found a human parchisi bouard, one which Akbar used dancing girls on to play as his pieces. Mrs. Holmes gave us a great re-enactment which we enjoyed as well as the other visitors. After we got back down the bottom of the complex, the sun was setting. We left Kamil and Raj informed us it was time to make our way back to Delhi. The ride was a bit quieter this time as we were all beat from our sightseeing. We did go through Weddingland though, a name I so appropriately gave a stretch of this road back to Delhi where we saw at least 7 wedding parties celebrating on the street. Yes, all the men were on their white horses or in wedding carriages. It was really cool. We made it back safely to our hotel and fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillows!