After a crazy travel day on Thursday (have to get into this later) we met up with our whole group in Delhi and had a debrief session then we set out by bus on Friday to Agar. This was a long drive (almost 4 hours) but full of interesting things to look at such as peacocks, monkeys, lots of cows and some good conversation. We stayed at a wonderful hotel, the Wyndham Grand Agra, it was beautiful but only had one night there as we left very early Saturday morning for the Taj.
To protect the Taj Mahal from pollution you are not allowed to drive close to it therefore our bus parked about 1.5km away, we took a smaller golf cart and then walked the final half km. We arrived some time between 6-6:30am to avoid the heat and the crowds.
I am not sure what entrance we came in but you go through a big red archway that opens up to the gardens and reflecting pool and of course the Taj Mahal itself.
It is inspiring how big it was and of course the symmetry of the buildings, especially when it was built over 500 years ago. The marble was beautiful and the inlay still in tact after all these years. We were able to go inside, with booties on or shoes off, although the tombs were actually downstairs they had replicas built above which we walked around.
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| View through arch/entrance way |
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| Entrance to the Taj Mahal |
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| Reflection Pool |
Later, after going back to the hotel for breakfast, we went to the Fort. This took over 90 years to build as many of Mughal kings would change the capital and move to different cities including Mumbai (Bombay) and Delhi. This was the fort that Shah Jahan was imprisoned in and you can see the Taj Mahal over the river, we even saw the rooms he was imprisoned in. The fort was very impressive. We only saw a small fraction off it as not all the areas are open to the public but it was so big it would take days to tour it all. I was also impressed by their technology as they build many of the rooms with a space between the walls where water was pumped in between to cool them down in the heat of the summer.
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| View of the Taj Mahal in background |
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| Room where Shah Jahan was imprisoned. Could see Taj Mahal from balcony |
Licia, thanks for sharing your thoughts and photos. Knowing how travel positively affects our lives and teaching, I thoroughly envy your students who will learn about India from someone who actually experienced it! Your photos and commentary are so interesting.
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ReplyDeleteThanks For Sharing Great Post. I really appreciate it. Keep it up.
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