Tired But Still Speachless

Wow what a day I've had today! We got up at 4:30 a.m. so that we could be at the Taj Mahal by sunrise. Our hotel was only a couple of miles away. It was more and more exciting the closer we got. Finally we could see it from the distance. Spectacular! You have to park quite a way from the Taj because of pollution from automobiles. So you arrive in an electric bus. Hawkers (young boys and men trying to sell all kinds of things) were as thick as flies. They can and usually do become quite a nuisance. Anyway we arrived at the outer gate. We received a complimentary bottle of water and covers for our shoes. Then we had to pass through a metal detector before entering the grounds. I can not explain to you how beautiful and awesome this building is. It has to be the most beautiful architectural structure that I have ever seen. It was gorgeous in the morning sunlight. It was built by Emperior Shah Jahan as a grave site for his sixth with who died in childbirth of her fourteenth child. On her deathbed she asked her husband to do three things: 1) never marry again, 2) take care of their six living children, and 3) build her a monument that would show to the whole world their love for one another. He accomplished all three.

The Taj took 22 years to build. The foundation took 5 years itself. She had to be buried in the ground instead of above ground because of religious beliefs. She was kept in a small tomb on the grounds for this five year period. The technology for this day and age was incredible. It was even designed to survive an earthquake by having large tanks filled with water to act as shock absorbers in case of a quake. This was built in the 1600s remind you!

I was just speechless! I never had dreamed of ever having the chance to see this magnificent structure but here I was. I took lots and lots of pictures that I'll have to share with you later since there is no way I can download my photos from my digital camera card. But I'm going to try to add a picture of the Taj that I've found on the Internet.

From here we went back to the hotel for breakfast. Then to the train station. What a chaotic mess! Hundreds and hundreds of people and millions and millions of flies. Finally we got into our car which was air conditioned by the way, thank God. Our trip was about three hours. Then onto another bus where we traveled for an eternity to get to Khajuraho. It takes so long to get anywhere here in India because of the conditions of the roads and the traffic. One of the roads we were on was just one lane with two way traffic. Go figure. At one point we were passing another bus and we were so close to each other that we had to just sit there for a while to let the drivers decide how to get out of this mess. We made it.

We have just eaten supper and it was more Currie of course! At least breakfasts are delicious. Well I guess I'd better go. Oh my bed is as hard as a rock!!!!!!! I think it's a quilt on top of a board!!!!!!

Catch you all later. Tomorrow we going visiting more temples.

Still having a ball.

Larry

P.S. I tried adding a picture but it didn't work. Sorry