Agra

Our last stop before returning to Delhi was to see the Taj Mahal.  I felt like I couldn't go to India without seeing one of the wonders of the world - and I wasn't disappointed!

The entrance to the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child.  After Jahan built the Taj Mahal for her, he was imprisoned by his own son in Agra Fort for the remaining 8 years of his life.  Very sad.

It was incredibly difficult to take photos as there were thousands of people while we were there.  I don't know how many times we'd take a photo just as some oblivious person walked right in front of the camera.  It was a bit frustrating!

It was actually an interesting process I went through in deciding who I'd ask to take a photo of us.  I used my new Canon digital SLR camera that a wonderful friend gave to me (thanks again Andy!) so I couldn't ask just anyone - I wanted to make sure that the person knew how to operate this type of camera.  So I would ask someone who was also using a digital SLR; and it seemed like they were always Japanese.  They all had some seriously impressive equipment - HUGE lenses and various accessories attached. 

We saw dozens of tourists holding their hands up while a photo was taken to make it look like they were 'picking up' the Taj Mahal.  Either that or holding it in the palm of their hand.

The people watching was just as fun as seeing the Taj Mahal.  There were tourists from EVERYWHERE.  We begun playing a game of 'where are they from?'.  We even attempted to be covert and take photos of people while they weren't looking.  I'm pretty sure most of them caught on to what we were doing.  The guys below are definitely Indian or Bangladeshi - we see men walking around holding pinkies everywhere in Dhaka.  I still find myself giving double takes - I wonder if I'll ever get used to it.

  

Monkeys are everywhere in India!  We saw these as we were walking down the street after leaving the Taj Mahal.  They were just hanging out next to the sidewalk and jumping through the trees.  I think I took about 50 pictures of monkeys during our stay in India - I just couldn't get over how common they are.  I'm sure the locals were looking at me and thinking 'ugh look at that crazy tourist taking photos of monkeys' like we would say about taking pictures of squirrels.  Oh well, it's not like I was blending in anyway!

This was presented to us after some of our meals in India.  I later found out that it's called mukhwas.  It's an after-meal snack common in India and Pakistan, and is used as a digestive aid and breath freshener. I believe this one contained fennel seeds, sugar cubes, sugar coated anise seeds, and various essential oils (maybe peppermint?).  It was quite tasty and very freshening!

The last fort we visited in India was Agra Fort.  By this time, we were completely over sight-seeing, and unfortunately we didn't learn much about this fort.  I don't think we could have squeezed any more facts into our overstuffed brains.  Instead we laid in the grass and read for awhile before taking a short walkthrough of the fort.  The main thing we learned about this fort was that Shah Jahan, the mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal was overthrown by his son and imprisoned here for the last 8 years of his life.

Agra Fort

Shah Jahan's prison quarters

Jahan's view of the Taj Mahal from his prison

More monkeys in the fort.  Near sunset they started chasing one another and playing - they put on quite a show for the tourists!  This one was doing somersaults in the grass.

Lots of baby monkeys!

Thirsty monkey

This was our gorgeous view from a rooftop restaurant.