Day in Agra

We climbed into the bus quite early in the morning in order to make our way to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. Before visiting the Taj we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri. Fathepur Sikri was once the capital of India during the 16^th century. It was built by the famous Mughal emperor Ackbar (hehe, whenever I hear that name I think of Star Wars and General Ackbar who is the Calamarian who helps destroy the death star…wow, I am such a nerd!) Ackbar had 3 wives, one was Hindu, one was Muslim, and one was Christian. The largest building at Fatehpur Sikri was built for Ackbar’s Hindu wife who provided him with a male heir. While we were leaving the site, an extremely annoying hawker opened the window next to Brenna and tried to sell her many bracelets. I think they usually leave me alone because I have adopted the best policy, just ignore them.

 Then we saw it, one of the seven wonders of the world…the Taj Mahal! It was beautiful and many people where visiting in order to marvel at Shah Jahan’s beautiful tribute to his deceased wife. Arabic inscriptions from the Qur’an run up the sides of both the Taj Mahal and the gate into the Taj Mahal. We took many pictures of the structure and surrounding gate and garden area. Our tour guide led us inside the tomb area and we circled around the tomb (the real bodies were not inside so it was just a place to pay tribute to the deceased queen). Surrounding the tomb was a lattice screen carved out of marble (originally it was carved out of gold but it was melted down by Jahan’s son and he had a marble one put in its place).

 While at the Taj we had quite a few people ask us to take pictures. I usually ignore them when they ask which apparently is a good thing because Sucharita informed us that we should no longer let people take our pictures because you never know what they are doing with the photos. She said that she had seen cases where foreigners got their picture taken and then things were photo shopped on them. After hearing this it made me feel better that I usually refuse to get my picture taken.

 The Taj was of course worth going to and we had a fun time walking around and seeing everything. Like many of our other excursions to other sites in India, we enjoyed this one a lot! Above is my favorite picture that I have taken so far. It is a picture of the gate to the Taj Mahal.