Today we had planned to go to the Taj Mahal. The bad news is that we had to leave at 5:00am this morning to drive the 3 1/2 hours to get there, the good news is that everyone was awake by 3:00am so we were able to ready by 5:00. Yay for us!

I have to say, I'm not sure what was more interesting, the Taj itself or the drive getting there. Looking over the countryside in India is quite a treat on it's own. I wish I had pictures to support all of my findings, but I guess you'll just have to believe me when I tell you what we encountered. The first time we saw a cow on the side of the road was about 10 minutes into out trip. After the first one, we saw them constantly. Besides the cows we saw chickens, boars, peacocks, dogs, lots of dogs, goats, and camels. Oh, yeah...and a monkey that chased Davis for a second. It was hilarious! Wish I had a picture of that. You'd think we visited the zoo! We also saw so much more poverty, villages with huts made of straw and cow dung. Anything you can imagine in a 3rd world country was there in the masses. Even grown men urinating on the side of the road, in the field, turned every direction...didn't matter. Also witnessed our first car sickness of the trip. The taxi driver made Dallan get sick twice. My guess was a combination of crazy Indian driving, no food in the tummy and playing on the ipod. But, we still pressed on!

first glimpse

Dallan holding the Taj in his fingertips!

Taj Mahal 2012

The beauty in the Taj Mahal cannot be experienced by pictures themselves. We had a tour guide that not only explained some amazing facts, but added some of the best pictures possible. Truly worth the voyage to get there. If you are not familiar with the background of the Taj it was built for the 3rd wife of Emperor Shah Jahan who died giving birth to their 14th child. It took 22 years to build with the help of 20,000 workers and was built between the years 1631-1653. The 4 outside pillars that surround the Taj are built at an outward angle. This is because if there was an earthquake, the pillars would fall away from the main structure. Everything is symmetrical on the grounds, the garden, the building itself, the other structures around the grounds. The only asymmetrical aspect of the entire grounds is inside the actual mosque. The emperor is buried to the right of his wife which leaves an empty space on her left. The youngest son was supposed to build another facade tomb to the right, but legend says he was too lazy.  Another interesting aspect is the main dome on the top of the structure is not the dome you see inside. They had to build a smaller dome inside to help with the weight of the marble.  There are so many amazing facts, these are just a few.

Tour guide showing us the details in the wall

These are precious stones inlaid in the marble

tour guide took this picture

After our visit, our guide took us to a shop where the family of those that chiseled away the marble and cut the stones, still practice this today. They pride themselves on this particular marble that is only found in India and that when you put a light behind it, you can actually see through it. It was an amazing display!

The two in the back are cutting the stone, the one in the front is chiseling the marble

It takes 36 individual pieces of cut stone to make the flower below

 

 So, today we were able to see one of the 7 wonders of the world. Pretty amazing I must say. But, even being surrounded by the beautiful Taj Mahal, my children made a bigger scene with those who have never seen people with such white skin. This time, Ryan caught it on film!

Oh, one last thing before I go...look what we found for dinner last night...