Oh, this should be the great day!
We woke up very early on tuesday, because we were all so excited to see the Taj Mahal.
Imagine, we could even see it from the hotel's room, far far away....
We made as much noise as we could to wake up our hosts, we just couldn't wait!
But than the big disapointment!
At the entry to the place of the Taj Mahal, the guys said, we tvs are all not allowed to go inside. In fact, humans are only permitted to take their camera with them.
These guys were very rude and sticked to their silly rules, Mona and Uli couldn't do anything.
That was soooo sad!
But our hosts went in and took some pictures for us.
And they told us a little bit about the history of the Taj.
Did you know these facts:
The Taj was built by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. in 1631. The death of Mumtaz left the emperor so heartbroken that his hair is said to have turned grey overnight. Construction of the Taj began in the same year and was not completed until 1653. In total 20.000 people worked on the building. The construction bill is believed to have run to 3 Million Rupee equivalent to about 70 million US dollar today.
As the Taj was ready, Shah Jahan let cut off the right hand of every worker, who built it, because he wanted to make sure, that they were not able to built another copy of Taj for any other man.
And soon after the finishing, Shah Jahan's son became the Emperor and put his father into jail.
He said, it is a big crime to built such an expansive building, while the folks have nothing to eat and die because of hunger. He put Shah Jahan into the Agra Fort from where he could see the Taj from his window every day, untill he died.
We went to this place, and Shah must had the same view, we had as we took this picture of me and the Taj in the far.
Still today it is a shame, that the goverment earns so much money every year from the visitors of the Taj Mahal, but Agra is still such a poor city.
It is very dirty and many people have got nothing to eat.
Around the place of the Taj a lot of beggars are, and you have totally to watch out, not to be cheated by shopowner and other people on the streets.
So this was a not so nice expierience allover....
Later we saw a nice hindu temple, which looks a little bit like the Taj on our way to Delhi.