The Taj Mahal - One of the Wonders of the World

I have never imagined myself visiting India, much less the famous Taj Mahal, but here I am--still pinching myself to see if I'm dreaming. This mausoleum was built by a grieving king for his beloved wife, who died giving birth to her 14th child. The queen is interred inside, and the king was entombed by her side later. Those are the only two things in the Taj Mahal. It is made of solid white marble, inlaid with precious stones and other colors of marble. It really is quite amazing (and every other superlative you can think of), and was definitely worth the long trip to see it.

When it was time to go, our "guide" proceeded to take us to a factory where they do marble inlays. We were subjected to a presentation on how this is done and then ushered into the showroom. We had no intentions of buying anything that expensive, but listened politely and got out of there as soon as we could. Then we were taken to a jewelry store where the same thing happened. Sometimes I hate being a tourist!

By this point, we were both exhausted and just wanted to get back to Delhi and our hotel (we had left the hotel at 6:30 this morning). We left Agra at 1:30 p.m., not even stopping for lunch (which our driver thought was very odd). Traffic became a huge issue, and it only got worse as we got closer to Delhi. Six hours and fifteen minutes later, we were back. It took us that long to go 125 miles--averaging about 20 miles an hour. Talk about miserable! I'm just glad the car had air conditioning so we didn't sweat to death.

We are going to try to attend church tomorrow; it all depends on finding the building. This ought to be interesting!