The Taj Mahal

After successfully making it to our hotel, we had to figure out transportation once again to go sightseeing. We booked a car for 4hours and traffic was even more chaotic midday thru the city. We started at the Itimad-Ud-Daulah, or "Baby Taj", which was the tomb of the grandfather of Mumtaz Mahal and model for the Taj Mahal. The artwork , inlays , carvings, and reliefs were intricate and beautiful. Next we stopped at the Mahtab Bagh, "Moon Gardens", on the north bank of the river across from the Taj. The first instant that we saw the palace rising thru the trees, we were awestruck. Its massive white domes and spires are gorgeous, the way it floats above the river and gardens is iconic. The Moon Garden itself wasn't much of a site unfortunately since they are just restoring it and replanting. But the view across the river was fantastic.

We made it to the palace grounds around 3 pm, plenty of time before sunset (525pm). The closest that vehicles can get to the gates is like 1.3km so we got some exercise in instead of taking the shuttle busses. There were mobs of both hawkers and tourists, and plenty of street dogs. We got tired of saying no and being polite to the peddlers, so Barry started yelling at them in Russian and it worked! We should always do that when we travel from now on. There's some extreme price discrimination for locals vs foreigners - 50 rupees vs 1100 rupees. But we did get free water, shoe covers, and shorter lines.

We entered at the East Gate and then passed thru the main palace gates. This was made of beautifully carved red limestone and clay bricks. Our next view of the Taj was even more wonderful. The symmetric gardens and turquoise tiled pools leading up to it lends to the experience and beauty. We fought thru crowds to get just the right photo and took off our shoes to go up to the building itself. It's even more spectacular up close where you can see the all of the details on the bright white marble. Unfortunately no photos inside the tomb. Sunset lit up the building with lovely shades of gold and orange, which we sat and watched a bit after browsing the small museum. We didn't stay thru the whole sunset since we didn't want to be late for our driver/guide.

Once back at our hotel,we finally met up with the rest of the group! Grabbed some beers, had a lovely dinner with the best deal ever, and caught up on the first half of their trip. Jet lag was catching up to us and we had to get up early for a sunrise trip to the Taj Mahal so we called it a night around 9. Day 1 success!Read more