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Feeling like a Model at the Taj Mahal

Ahhh...so after a rest and a hot hot shower... I am feeling slightly more human and much nicer than I was at 8:30 am with not much sleep.  We decided to go to the Taj for sunsetish time, since the tickets are so expesive and you can only go in once-no returns!  So we ate some lunch and prepared for our trip. 

At about 2pm we took the short walk down the street from our hotel to thh Eastern Gate of the Taj Mahal.   I was really excited, which is strange for me cause I don't usually get that excited about touristy things like this...but this is the Taj Mahal!!!  Ok so it will probably be the most expesive thing in India that I spend money on 750 Ruppees!!!! I could live for about a week on that in the rest of India...but it is well worth it. 

The tale of the Taj is a sad, sweet love story. Shan Jahan,a Mughal emperor, was considered to be very virtuous and took the throne in 1628.  Three years after he took the throne he recieved some very sad news.. that his favorite wife of 18 years, Arjumand Banu Begum, had died giving birht to their 14th child( jesus, I would have died too!)  Shan Jahan decided that that his beloved should be buried in a tomb of timeless beauty "a tear that would hang in the cheek of time"-Rabindranath Tagore-Bengali poet.  Work on the Taj Mahal began in 1632, marble, gems adn crafts peopel from all over India were emploed inteh efforts to build the Taj in all it is estimated that 20,000 people worked non-stop to construct the Taj which was completed in 1953. By this time many things had changed..the capital moved to Delhi, and one of Shan Jahan's sons had come to power, staging a coup against his brothers and imprisioning his father in the Agra Fort.  Shan Jahan lived out his days under house arrest staring across teh Yamuna River at the Taj and his beloved.  When he died in 1666 his body was buried next to his wife's.

So thats the story...so basically teh Taj Mahal is a giant elaborate tomb. I suppose that it is also a monumetn to love...something apparently rare here in India.  As we approached the Taj ourselves I started to get really ancy...I was so excited..and when I saw it.. OMG...it truly is breath taking and awe inspiring.  I just stood and satraded for while it si so big and perfect adn beautiful and white! I felt a little dippy (as Andy would say) like a little kid or something.  We got so excited and completely camera happy! We were like really tourist!  Irelaly did feel like model.  Andy was trying to figureout the right light for his camera and proabaly took about 25 pictures of me in front of the Taj it was really funny we were having so much fun taking picutres.  We finally figured it all out and the select few you will see below.  We also started a fun game of taking pictures with Indian families.  I expereinced this same thing in China-where people just want o take photographs with you cause your white I guess, i am not really sure 'why' exaclty.  So Andy and I started asking India people if we coudl take our photgraphs with them...it was funny cause the first people we asked said no quite firmly... but eventually we found plently of people who wanted to be in photographs with us.  We took so many... and I am not joking when iIsay that I am in at least 30 families pictures of the Taj and will proabaly be several Indian mens " girlfirend" in their pictures.  People were literally wasting entire rolls of film to have their picture taken with me, one with every memeber of the family.  So funny!

So three hours ended up being more than enough time to spend at the Taj and even though we didn't stay until sunset we really felt we had enjoyed it completely and we certainly had enough photographs!  We walked back to our hotel thorugh a mess of people and dirt and poverty, again, highlighting the juxtaposition of things in India.  Here is this gorgeous monument, that t he government charges a shit load for people to visit, but the poverty right outside the door remains... where is the money going?  It is aquestion I think many tourist and Indians alike are asking. 

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