Agra

I made a quick trip up to Agra this week with some friends that were here from the US.  We flew to Delhi and then made the 3.5-hour drive down to Agra.  One of the best things about the trip was being in the car with them while we were driving through Agra at night!  It is a small town with narrow streets, cars, tuk tuks, scooters, dogs, cows, pigs, tons of people walking in the street and the occasional monkey darting past!  Our driver drove like a typical Indian driver: fast (to us anyway) and not necessarily staying on his side of the road. I was proud of them, though. There were no screams…just the occasional “oh my gosh!”  Here are some highlights of the trip:

Rickshaw ride from the hotel to the Taj Mahal

View through the gate

The Taj Mahal is an architectural wonder!  Construction began on the marble mausoleum around 1632
and was completed around 1653.

 

Part of one of the walls on the outside of the Taj Mahal detailing
the marble inlay work.

The pieces are all cut, shaped, smoothed and placed into
the marble by hand.

The design is made up of lots of separate pieces.
One flower could have 100 parts to it.  Some
tale tops take over a week to make.

It's very detailed work.  Some table tops have thousands of pieces of gemstones such as mother of pearl, lapis,
onyx, malachite, ruby and amethyst.