India. . . Day 5

Today started early at 5:30 with a sunrise tour of the Taj Mahal.  I cannot express in words the beauty and awe of that magnificent tomb.  Pictures cannot express either. . . I guess you just have to see it for yourself.  It was stunning, majestic, amazing, beautiful. . . these words just do not capture the essence.  The first view through the gates literally took my breath away and I immediately had goosebumps.  The Taj was built in the 17^th century by Mughal Emperor Sha Jahan as an expression of his love for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.  The Taj took 22 years and 20,000 laborers to build and now houses both the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Sha Jahan.  The marble work is inlaid with many semi-precious stones and was quarried 200 miles away and transported by a fleet of 1000 elephants.

 

(These nice people asked to take a picture with me. . . Never had anyone random asked to take a picture with me before. . . felt like a celebrity)

 

After the Taj Mahal we returned back to the hotel for the breakfast that we were not able to enjoy earlier in the morning.  We then proceeded to Sikandra, the sandstone and marble tomb of Akbar, the the 3^rd Mughal Emperor.   While we were visiting in the courtyard one of the members of our group was holding a pinapple juice box which a rather large male monkey noticed.  The poor woman was charged by a teeth baring monkey and only escaped by tossing the desired juice box to the sandstone floor.  It was rather comical and scary at the same time.  About 15 min later the group broke up to use the facilities.  During this time Clayton decided to take an up close picture of the same monkey.  The monkey, however, did not appreciate having his picture taken and my poor dear husband was then charged as well and escaped by running as fast as his feet could carry him.  Unfortunately I missed seeing this spectacle.

 

 

We then proceeded to the Baby Taj which was actually built before the Taj Mahal.  It is also known as Itmad-Ud-Daulah and is the first Mughal structure built totally from marble.

  After the Baby Taj we stopped by a marble store in which we were shown a demonstration of how the semi-precious and carved and inlaid into the marble, the same process used for the Taj Mahal.  The pieces for sale were fantastic and I found a beautiful table made with elephants marching around the perimeter.  I fell in love!  . . . until I found out it was 120,000 rupee ($2,400)!!  I settled for a small magnet for the fridge.

 

 By the end of this day we had resorted to washing our clothes in the sink.  We had run out of clothing items and could not re-wear items as they were soaked in sweat.