The Taj Mahal

On Jan 6th we were up early and in the van by 7am for the drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We stopped enroute to visit Fatehpur Sikri, the deserted capital of Emporer Akbar. It was built in the 16th century of red sandstone but the city was abandoned 12 years later due to a lack of water. It still stands completely intact and although it seemed impressive at the time, seems somewhat unmemorable now after the Taj Mahal.
The Taj Mahal was amazing! It is by far the most impressive building I’ve ever seen and pictures cannot do it justice. While walking around the grounds I was basically in constant awe. It just has such a huge presence and I can't even comprehend what it would have taken to build. Taj Mahal literally translates into “crown palace,” but it was actually built strictly as a mosoleum. It was created by emporer Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal. She had 14 kids over 19 years so I’m not surprised she was his “favourite.” It took 22 years to build and was the work of 20,000 men and over 1,000 elephants. I’m going to refer once again to Wikipedia if you want more info because I’m not really writing this as a history lesson. But if you ever have the opportunity to go and see it for yourself, definitely take it!

I know I’ve said this before, but the drive home was once again the craziest drive of my life. I have never seen fog like this before. There was probably a few hours of the drive that you really couldn't see even a meter in front of the van. I have no idea how we managed to avoid all of the many people that were still wandering across the road or on bicycles or the oncoming traffic that we sometimes encountered because you couldn't even see the road to know which side you're supposed to be on. The drive took about 7 hours and is only 232kms, just to give you an idea of how slow we were actually going. Needless to say, our driver got a big tip just for getting us home alive.