Seventh Wonder of the World..........

No................not my command of the English language, my prowess on 1950's technology British motorcycles........The Taj Mahal!  Linked back up with Saved (The crazy Indian riding his mountain bike 1200km from Leh to Dehli) in Dehli and decided to pile in the very style of taxi that attempted to end my life a few days before on a three hour commute to Agra, former capital of India and home to the Taj Mahal.........and Argra (Red) Fort.  Saved happened to be a history major..........so we'll take him for a little background help and always critical translation duties.  100F today and lots of marble, should be thoroughly dehydrating to say the least........let's get started.  

Before you start arguing with me whether the Taj is one of the Seven Wonders of the World........the list changes every couple of years......yaddaa yadda yadda......always remember, everyone's a F'n winner, we all get trophies for merely signing up and Unesco, the designating authority, is up there on the "Most Effective" organizations list with the United Nations, Comcast Cable and AT&T Cellular if you catch my drift.  Let's do this.........

Came in through this monstrosity of an entrance to find a football field or two long shallow pool with fountains.  I think this is the only grass I've seen in the big cities since being here.  Relatively quiet and it was a weekday.  

Boom!  Place ain't small, all white marble in fine Indian fashion and the dome is impressive......all square blocked on the outside and lots of chiseling.  Built by  Emperor Jahan for his second wife......it's massive, marble, and gotta take your shoes off again.

 

Little farther back for some perspective.  Quite a hike from the entrance along the pools.

Miles of marble, no shoes allowed, at 100F, this joint made the Golden Temple feel like wading in the Arctic Ocean.

Entry to the main Mosque, little sophistimication in my photography........anyone saying I lack perspective and depth in my photographs can go outside and play hide go fooz yourself.

Four towers at each corner.

Entrance is huge, small temple inside, no pictures allowed and holds the tombs of the Mr. and Misses.........numero dos.  I think he had 9 or 10 wives............He built it because she was his favorite and died giving birth to their 14th child.  Dang dude!

 

"Small out building to the side."  Huge mosque and building detail was pretty impressive considering they are chiseling this stuff out of solid stone.

 Headed 2 klicks down the road to the Agra Fort.  Just as impressive in my opinion, part of it built in marble and the other in red stone.  

Every fort needs a moat and this one was huge.  Maybe thirty feet deep and snaked around this enormous complex.

Inside the main entrance, sported a drawbridge and tons of grass.

I'm crushing these artistic photos now!

  

Ever see the movie 300?  Yeah.....that hole is a long way down and that is where the riff-raff are kicked down.

 

 
 

Ok......so second story building over in the corner.  That was essentially a prison cell built for the Mr. Jahan, remember him, the guy who built the Taj Mahal for his wife?

 

So...........I don't know the entire or whole story, but one of Jahan's sons confined him to the corner of the Fort and the old man's only request was to have a view of the Taj Mahal, the burial place of his wife.  He resided here and never left until his death.  Don't quote me on that.

 Well.........there ya have it.  Big part of Northern India in a nutshell.  Been quite eventful to say the least .  Hopefully the pictures made it worth taking a few minutes out of the day to forget about ones painful life confined to your cage (cubicle).  This trip wasn't hard to make happen, cost 2600 bucks for the entire thing, most of it coming from the 1200 bones on the Air China cattle car.  Is India the safest place to go on vacation, rent bikes with almost no brakes and zero passing power to get outa the way of oncoming carnage.......probably not?  Thanks for following along, take a trip somewhere before the year ends to a place or doing something you would NEVER picture yourself trying............I'll see you from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Peace out!