Hi All,
As I mentioned earlier I am currently in New Delhi, India on business and I have ventured out of the hotel a bit and wanted to share one particular trip I took to see the Taj Mahal. I realize you could just google it but wanted to share my experience with the family.
A co-worker and I took a Hotel Tour Trip that left at 615A and got back at 11P - was a long day for sure. About 8+ hours of it was travel.
We left the hotel and along the way we were traveling in the typical New Delhi traffic.
Notice the little 3 wheel vehicles, called "Autos" or "TukTuk" depending on who you ask - made for the driver and 2 normal, maybe 3 small people. Zillions of these things here.
Here is an "auto" that I counted at least 15 people in - see them hanging off the sides?
Along the way we could have stopped at any of these fine local dining establishments but didn't.
I saw many examples of entrepreneurship along the way - a few shopping spots
A mechanics shop
People making a living any way they can
As we moved away from the city the people became more environmentally protective and switched from engine driven equipment to animal driven
When you use this kind of transportation there is a lot of paddys generated and this fella had a unique business - collecting the paddys, flattening and drying them out and then selling them as a firewood alternative.
Anyway, we arrived at the Taj Mahal, went through the security gate where you went through a metal detector and a patdown. There was a long list of things you couldn't bring in like newspapers, tripods, iPods, candy - a bunch of weird things.
A little data first. Taj Mahal translates to Crown Palace. The Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shajha in a show of love, as a mausoleum for his wife. It took 20,000 people 22 years to build and it is just that - a tomb for his wife. There is nothing in the Taj except his and her tombs and you can't take pics inside. He wanted to build a pure black Taj across the river for himself but only the foundation was built before he died, so they buried him in his wife's mausoleum with her. Allegedly he had the hands of all 20,000 people that worked on the Taj, cut off so there would never be another built like it.
We went through the "Gate" to the Taj and as you can see, this is our first glimpse of this beauty. Might be a bit hard to see but it is there.
They say that your first look at something is the most beautiful and lasting - here is the Taj in all it's beauty
The rest of the pics are just different angles of it's beauty.
And beside the first look, one of my favorites
When we exited the security gate we caught these water buffalo coming home unsupervised - apparently they leave home in the morning and go to the river to do what water buffalo do and then come back at night. These kind of animals are worshiped in this region based on religion and roam the streets untethered. It's not unusual to come out of the hotel and see a cow going through the dumpster like we might see a dog doing the same.
Hope all the pics are clear enough for you and I hope you enjoy them.
Rick
