Taj Mahal

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Hi All

We took our tour bus to Agra and arrived in the early afternoon. We went on a short tour to the Agra fort which was awesome, absolutely beautiful. Better than the fort in Delhi, but I think thats cause we had more time to check it out. Then we went to the Baby Taj, which was Ok... Took some rickshaws across this very narrow bridge, there was push carts, livestock, cows, bikes, you name it, it was on this bridge, crazy. Around 3 we took the bus to the Taj Mahal.

Ok at the fort, you could see the Taj in the distance.. one of the guys on our tour summed it up with a 'breathtaking' and he was right.. then we saw it up close. I can NOT descibe the The Taj Mahal to anyone.. you really have to see it.. You pay your fee, go through a few amazing huge gorgeous gates and then after the last gate you walk through the Taj is right in front of you.. it is SO amazing. Perfectly preportioned, huge, one of the most incredible buildings I have ever seen in my life. The grounds are gorgeous gardens, just awesome, not like a lot of India thats for sure. We were there for sunset, which was truly amazing. There are the tombs of the queen it was built for and her husband inside the Taj, we waited for at least half an hour to get in and then all we saw was a fenced in area with what may have been coffins in it and it was SO dark, we could hardly see where we were going.. Crazy....

The Taj is also one of the places where we, as westerners were asked for pictures SO much... it happened in Delhi but at the Taj Mahal, some people would just throw thier kids in front of us and snap a picture.. It was crazy. They also tended to ask any guy near you if it was Ok but seldom asked us women.. absolutely insane... I am still not sure why all these Indian people need a picture of me or the Aussies, but at the the Taj, we were sick of it and I told this one group of guys it would cost them 100 rupees.. he was going to pay... crazy. I couldn't take his money even though it would have bought me a beer... haha

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