13 March 2012 Tuesday

We were up early and Preveen Beesa, Member of the church and a travel agent here in one of the Branches, had arranged for a driver to pick us up at 6:30 AM and take us out to Agra. Many people told us we really needed to see the Taj Mahal while we were so close. We decided they were right and since we had to stay a couple more days, decided to do so.

Look who we found on the way. . . .

 What a great experience. We loved it! The Taj Mahal has quite a history which, I’m not going into here. Let me just say that it is ‘a dream in marble'. It’s situated on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was built of white Indian marble, the hardest marble in the world. It was built in memory of the then Empress of India, who died while giving birth to their 14^th child. The emperor announced a memorial be built to his wife and construction was started in December 1631. It took 22 years to compete and some twenty thousand laborers worked on it. When I think of the mode of construction....it truly is amazing.

There is no paint on the Taj Mahal. Inlaid in the marble are many semi-precious stones. That in and of itself is a masterpiece of art. All the writing and decorative effects are the work of master craftsman and took many many hours, months and years.There is caligraphy around some of the big arches. They are chapters of the Quran. Each doorway is a different chapter. Below are a couple of pictures of some of the hard carved in marble panels that are throughout the Taj. The border is made up of the inlaid stones. I can't imagine the hours involved. . .

calligraphy around an arch...all inlaid

We did go to a place where they make carpets - some silk. We learned that some of those carpets have 2400 knots per square inch. that seems inpossible to me. They were very beautiful. Way out of my price -

Then we went to another place where they make beautiful plates and dishes using the method used on the Taj Mahal. That was incredible as well. Each piece is ground down to size by a man with some kind of contraption. Then the pieces are fit together, kind of like a picture puzzle and they are inlaid into a piece of the Indian marble. They were absolutely gorgeous.

It was a very interesting day. We saw a lot of country side. There were lots of fields of wheat growing. It's mostly a very populated country with people and traffic everywhere. We saw a lot of country that looked a lot like Nepal. No mountains, but the way people live. Quite a few people begging on the street and poor living conditions.We did get to see a couple of camels and felt like we really got a taste of India.