On April 2 we left Jaipur for a 5 hour drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. On the way we counted the number of cows we spotted — it was a lot. We also made some stops! First stop, an impressive step well called Chand Bawri. It’s huge!

Andrew found a yummy spot for us to stop for lunch called the Courtyard in Bharatpur.

After lunch we went to see a site called Fatehpur Sikri. It was built by Emperor Akbar to be the capital of the Mughal Empire in 1571, but then was only used for about 15 years and was then abandoned due to the lack of fresh water. It’s worth noting the sequence of Mughal emperors since most of the sites we saw in Agra and Delhi were related to that period of rule from the 1500s through the 1800s. The earliest Mughal Emperors were: 1) Babur, 2) Humayun, 3) Akbar, 4) Jahangir, 5) Shah Jahan, 6) Aurangzeb and then so on.

Our guide explained that this spot was used for musical performances because the water would amplify the sound.

Many of the buildings were covered in beautiful carvings in the red sandstone.

Our guide also explained that Akbar decided to found his own religion, with him as the head. His idea was to combine all the influential religions from the area into one religion. This pole shows all those religions represented — from the bottom you can see Buddhist flowers, Hindu swastikas, Christian window shapes, the Islamic arch, Persian zig zags, and the Lotus flower on top unites them all. He would sit on top of the central pillar with his 9 advisors all around him.

Unfortunately, his religion failed when he died because he didn’t force anyone to convert to his religion and his children were Muslim.

Next we visited the mosque, which apparently has the largest gate in Asia.

Our guide tried to talk us into making a donation to get our wish to come true but we decided against it. He also tried to sell us some marble sculptures but we headed on our way. This site was in a very rural and poor area, and was the most aggressive tout experience that we encountered in India.

We continued on to our hotel in Agra, another Taj hotel, and had a delicious dinner before heading to bed… the following day we’d be seeing the Taj Mahal!

The next morning we woke up and wished Andrew a very happy birthday! We had a delicious hotel breakfast and were on our way early to see the Taj before it got too hot. Here we are at the entrance gate — there are 22 small domes on top to represent the 22 years it took to build.

The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his 3rd and favorite wife, Mumtaz aka Taj. She died in childbirth and he was so sad that he vowed that he would never marry again, that he would take care of their children, and that he would bury her above ground in the Islam tradition.

The four minarets surrounding the Taj are angled slightly outward, so that if there were ever an earthquake which caused them to fall they would fall outward and not damage the central structure.

The doorways are framed by marble inlay with verses from the Koran. They are designed to be larger at the top so that the words maintain their legibility when viewed from the ground.

We were told that Shah Jahan had plans to build a matching tomb for himself out of black marble, and place it across the river. Our guide said that he got so far as laying the foundation for the second black marble tomb before his son, Aurangzeb, called a stop to his expenditures and had his father locked away in the Agra Fort palace. Aurangzeb had deposed his father and killed his brothers in order to take control and become the next emperor. Now that I look on Wikipedia it’s not clear if the story is true or just a myth, but it’s a good story!

There were a LOT of people at the Taj who wanted to take Sarah’s picture, and she was having none of it! A few of them took my picture as a consolation prize. 🙂

We went back to the hotel for some pool time! The Taj hotel has a rooftop infiniti pool with a view of the Taj Mahal! So we hung out there for awhile and enjoyed a delicious poolside lunch.

We got a late checkout so we could shower and pack and then we spent our remaining time on a quick visit to the Agra Fort, which was another site built by Akbar!

Another cannon!

The view back to the Taj Mahal that Shah Jahan got to enjoy during his imprisonment.

Then we headed to the train station to wait for our train to Delhi!

Tea on the train!

Next stop, Delhi! The train station was intense, so crowded! But we were met by a greeter from the hotel who helped us navigate the crowd and get back to the Oberoi hotel to settle in and have some dinner. They also greeted Andrew with this!