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  • Day 4

    Day 4: Agra / Taj Mahal

    November 23, 2016 in India ⋅ 🌙 11 °C

    Finally, we went to Taj Mahal! It's as beautiful and magnificent as I imagined. It towered over the entire city, glistening under the sun, shining through the history.

    Our local guide Raj gave us some wonderful history lessons and told us the love story behind this building. I didn't know Mrs. Taj had 14 children in her 20 years marriage! Another interesting story is that after her death, her husband was going to build a black Taj Mahal in a mirror image of the white one. But his son (one of her 14 kids) took the throne from him and put him in house arrest, because he thought his father had spent too much money on the white Taj Mahal, and the country couldn't afford a black one. Interestingly, when we went to the back side of Taj Mahal last night, we actually saw the foundation of it, didn't realize what that was. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if there is a black Taj Mahal standing right behind the white one?!

    Ever wondered why the beautiful writings and pictures on the building never fades? It's because they were not painted, they are actually gem stones inlayed into the marble stones. The red colors are coral; the blue colors are turquoise; Brown colors are jasper; white colors are mother of pearl; green colors are jade... All the writings in black are onyx. When you touch the surface, it's entirely smooth. Because the artists would shape a gem stones into a flower pedal shape, then outlined it on the marble, then carve out the shape and finally use a very special glue to stick the gem stone into the carved out space. They needed to do it hundreds of thousands times to cover this huge building. The colors will never fade!

    The reason I know all this is because we went to a shop where local people demonstrated how this is done. I know it's a tourist trap, but I still enjoyed learning how this was made. Also, I am now the proud owner of a set of very, very expensive coasters that were done exactly same way as Taj Mahal. Next time you come to our house, you can set your coffee mug on one of these beautiful coasters made with a rare green marble, and inlayed with gem stones. LOL! Yeah, I know I may be a sucker for falling into this kind of tourist trap, but I really like these local artists who were making this kind of art, so I wanted to support them by paying way too much money for their goods.

    Evan's favorite Indian food is samosa; and for some reason, he hadn't had the chance to eat one since we arrived. Once we told our wonderful driver about it, he brought us to the roadside stand that supposedly selling the best samosas in the city. They were indeed delicious! This is the first time we ate street food in India. Hopefully we wouldn't come to regret the decision.

    We then visited the Agra Fort. An interesting story: when the British attacked the Fort, they used cannon. One of the cannon ball hit the King's throne and bounced off, created a hole on the wall.

    We arrived our hotel called Laxmi Vilas Palace. The room we are in is a very traditional Indian palace room. Evan is so happy that he got his own room for once. In our last hotel room, he had to sleep on a couch. A spacious couch but still just a couch.

    Looking forward to visiting the famous Bird Sanctuary tomorrow !
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