Taj Mahal

Pictures just don't do this place justice. It's a tomb built by Shah Jahan for his 2nd wife. It's about 20 stories high (notice how tiny the people are at the bottom of the 3rd photo), took 23 years to build by 20,000 artisans! The details are amazing with carvings, semi-precious stones and marble inlays of writing encompassing 14 chapters of the Koran. This place looks like it was built yesterday instead of 1653. Since we saw it in winter, there was heavy haze and fog most of the day, so it was white marble against white skies, but that gave the pictures a kind of old postcard  or painterly look. We saw it in the morning the first time, then went back at sunset to view it from the back side at a park across the river - no entrance fee, no crowds and almost a better view (the Taj is symmetrical, so the back is just like the front). We've heard that Shah Jahan intended to build another Taj for himself out of black marble and planned to link the 2 by a bridge over the river where their souls could meet again in the afterlife. Don't know if that's true, but it makes a great, romantic story. In case you're wondering about the last photo - we always do our "shadows" on vacation and this one is on the marble platform of the Taj with all of us doing the "Namaste" greeting.