taj mahal, anyone?

so, i suppose my trip in india would not be complete without the documentation of our visit to the taj mahal in agra. to be honest, i didn't have very high expectations--i never do when it comes to this type of thing. you know its going to be cool--but don't ever count on it being life-changing or anything. but it was, as many say, breathtaking and beautiful, and i definitely was at a loss of words for how incredible it was.

it was also an awesome, awesome weekend because my friend kristina and i met up with mitch, teju and amy, friends who are working in chennai for the summer building up an NGO called the shared element. ah--i cant stop telling people how amazing their work is. we had such a great time, messing around, doing cartwheels at the taj, eating mangoes on our rooftop, meeting people, wandering about...

our first view of the taj mahal from the agra fort. there is a ridiculous amount of history and stories and intrigue when it comes to this place and the people who lived there. like sons locking up their fathers (who happen to be emperors...), overthrowing each other, etc. and so on...

also at agra fort. as our tour guide akash described it to us, this one garden encompasses the three great loves of the mughal emperors--also known as the 3 'W's: wine (they grew grapes here), walls (the fantastic architecture), and women (you are viewing the remnants of an ancient brothel). i laughed for quite a while when he told us this...

ta-dah!! we went in the afternoon, and it was packed--right up until it closed. ok, yeah, it peeved me that the foreigner rate is 750 Rs and the Indian rate is like 20...but it was, of course, worth it. i wasn't so taken by the size or the value of the marble and all the semi-precious stones inlaid into it as much as i was impressed by the time, effort, detail, concision, and thought put into it. It combines Persian, Turkish, Indian and Islamic architectural styles--I wasn't expecting to see Arabic all over the Taj, but it was gorgeous. The building and surroundings are perfectly symmetrical...perfectly.

Amy, I hope you're not going to sue me for this, but I'm going to quote you here because you did the best job ever summarizing the best parts of the taj. here, to be super clear, this was written by amy jackson, one of the most lovely people i've ever met, with (truly) the voice of an angel and a personality to match:

"There's perfect symmetry over the entire 5-acre plot or however big it is, and the domes are mathematically perfect, and the minarets lean outward just enough to not destroy the center in event of an earthquake, and there are optical illusions in the stonework (PS, we got to visit the workshop of the guys whose great-great-400-years-and-fourteen- generations-ago-great grandfathers did the original stonework... they're not only still doing that stone inlay work, they're still using the same mortar recipe!) and the garden is laid out according to some Quoranic passage..."

We saw the Taj...yes we did! Hooray! (And Happy 21st Birthday, Mitch!!)

This is on one side of the Taj, a mosque I believe (the other side is the exactly the same, but instead it's a guest house). We made a huge effort to be there at sunset, and it was well, well worth it. I think we spent at least an hour just sitting out by the building, admiring every aspect of it possible.

the next day we took a short detour to Fatehpur Sikri, the abandoned capitol of king akbar. but due to water shortages, they only lived there for less than 10 years before shifting to agra fort. the architecture itself resembled agra fort and the red fort in delhi, so it wasn't that exciting. but the ruins like this one were unbelievable, you could explore every turn and corner to your heart's content (while being careful of some crazy drop-offs). you can see my friend kristina on the upper right hand corner, as tiny as she is!