The Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World! It is known as a jewel of Muslim art and architecture. Like most people, I have seen pictures of it in books, magazines, and on television for most of my life. Now I found myself about to actually see the real thing!
Aaron and I booked a tour of the triangle through our hotels travel agency in Delhi. On departure day, Sanjay Kumar, our awesome driver and guide for the tour, picked us up from the hotel at 7:00 am and we set off for Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. In mid-January in this part of India, the days start off very foggy and stay that way until around noon. You can choose when you want to go to the Taj, morning or afternoon. We wanted the sky to be as clear as possible so we chose the afternoon for our visit when we booked our tickets online.
Agra is not really that far from Delhi, but you have to take traffic conditions into consideration. And a city with 28 million people has a lot of traffic! Driving through the streets of Delhi is a journey in itself. It becomes very apparent that a lot of the fog is smog. At almost every red light there are vendors going from car to car selling anything you can imagine; dish towels, roses, car window shades, sunglasses, etc. There are also the homeless; children, mothers with babies, the elderly, that tap on the window and say “money”, or “chapati” (an Indian bread). You can also see them lined up on the sidewalk in rows, under blankets, or gathered around a small fire they’ve built from collected trash. Although every country has homeless people, this is always the hardest part of travel to me.
Finally getting out of the city limits we stopped for breakfast, and this put our travel time to Agra at about five hours. Our driver Sanjay, stopped at a nice, local roadside spot for breakfast. It was a big place, and it was packed. We had Masala Dosas for breakfast, they were delicious, and some hot coffee to warm us up. It had been a cold morning so far.
We arrived in Agra around 1:00 in the afternoon. Sanjay took us straight to the hotel to check in and freshen up. Our guide for the Taj Mahal met us at the hotel and Sanjay drove us over around 2:30 pm. The lines to get in were not really that long, but our online tickets got us right in. No one without a ticket can get beyond this front ticket area. This is a 42 acre complex and we quickly found ourselves in a shuttle heading towards the impressive and immense entrance gate. Next, we had to make a stop at a booth where they gave us disposable covers to wear over our shoes and a bottle of water each. You don’t have to put the shoe covers on until you are actually going to enter the Taj Mahal building itself. It was also still a good walk from the shoe cover booth to reach the awesome entrance gates.
You can’t see the Taj Mahal until you are going through the enormous gateway. We were already impressed with just this. This gateway is immense and very detailed. I had never even seen a picture of it. But when you walk through and see the Taj, still at quite a distance away, it takes your breath away.
Right after you emerge on the other side of the entrance is the famous spot where almost all the photos you see are taken. Of course, everyone wants to stand there and have their picture taken with the Taj in the background, us included. It’s a must! It was crowded, but not like I thought it would be. I thought there would just be a hoard of people pushing and shoving, but the complex is so big that there were plenty of places to stand and get pictures with an unobstructed view.
The grounds themselves contain the Mughal Symetrical Gardens which are beautiful and meticulously maintained. I was surprised to see green parrots flying from tree to tree. Long fountains stretch from the entrance to the Taj itself. The grounds also contain two guesthouses, a mosque, and another grand gateway. Our guide J.J., made sure we got plenty of pictures at the entrance, then encouraged us to walk the grounds and take more pictures after we had gone inside the mausoleum itself. No picture taking allowed inside the mausoleum. We actually saw people having their phones confiscated and security deleting the photos that they had taken.
If you didn’t already know, the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum. Construction of this ivory marble wonder started in 1631 and took 22 years to complete. At the time of its construction, it cost 32 million rupees, or about $385,000.00 dollars to build. Today it would cost 350 billion rupees, or $421 million dollars to build. The white marble used for the Taj lets light shine through it and it picks up colors from the sky, so it changes very subtly throughout the day. What you can’t see unless you’re close up is the intricate and delicate designs inlaid all over it. These flowers and designs are all done in semi-precious stones such as lapis, topaz, garnet, malachite, jade, and others. It took 20,000 workers, 22 years to complete this marvel of architectural design.
The story behind the Taj Mahal is a real life love story. The Taj Mahal was built under the order of Emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, Mumtaz. The Shah had three wives, two were Indian princesses with which he had no children. These marriages were for political purposes only. Mumtaz was a princess from Persia (Iran) and his favorite and most beloved wife, with whom he had 14 children.
Shah Jahan and Mumtaz were engaged when she was 11 and he was twelve. They married when he was 20 and she was 19 on the date set by the astrologers. Shah Jahan took Mumtaz everywhere with him, which was unusual for an Emperor to do. He also gave her important positions within his government and granted her the power to make rulings and decisions in his absence. This is a reflection of his love for and trust in her.
When Mumtaz started having complications after delivering their 14th child, it became clear that she was going to die. She asked Shah Jahan to promise her three things. First to always take care of the children, second to never remarry, and third to build her a nice tomb for the family to visit. She was only 38 years old.
He kept these promises to her. He even picked out a spot to have his own mausoleum built across the river from hers. His was to be built out of black marble in contrast to the white marble used for hers. You can look across the river and see where the site was excavated, where the complex walls were to be built and even where the mausoleum itself was to be constructed.
However, during this time, the couple’s youngest son had grown up and decided he wanted to be Emperor, now, not after his father died. He had his two older brothers killed and his father imprisoned in the guesthouse that overlooks the river on the grounds of the Taj Mahal. The Emperor stayed imprisoned here for the remaining 8 years of his life. Upon his death he was entombed next to his beloved Mumtaz.
Interesting side note; as a young man, Shah Jahan also had his two older brothers assassinated so that he could become the Emperor.
The Taj Mahal is more than beautiful, it honestly took my breath away and is one of the most remarkable man-made structures I have ever seen. It truly is a wonder to behold and I feel so lucky that I was able to go and see it and stroll through the grounds.
Our Delhi & Taj Mahal Video
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