Epitome of LOVE - The Taj Mahal

Day 3 (27 October 2004). How lucky Mumtaz Mahal is... to love and be LOVED.

It's not the desination BUT the journey

After visiting India, I have to admit, not only I was wrong in many ways (mind my ignorant yah, at least am honest :P ) but I was overwhelmed by every single way too.

Let's start with...

The JOURNEY to Agra.

Ahhhh...... Agra! Everyone will know where Taj Mahal is located but NOT many know which city it is located in. I didn't either UNTIL my trip to India. The drive took 4 hours (if I can remember correctly, after all, the trip was in 2004!!!). Grace booked the ride from travel agent to take us the Golden Triangle Route - Delhi > Agra > Jaipur > Delhi. We rode in what I believe India national car TATA car, cute little comfy car. We went thru a 2 lane road ie to and fro lar.... not much car but plenty of lorries. And when I say plenty, I meant REALLY PLENTY! Few things that interest me during this journey...

~ The rest stop area cum restaurant - I mean, check it out! Its cool, clean PLUS the food was great! Clean is what I definately did not expect, I was thinking; since it's out of the Delhi city - here I thought of the worse of the mighty worst. BUT...SURPRISE! SURPRISE! Make me pai sei! Malaysia R&R doesn't even look half this interesting! Infact, this kinda look like a resort hor... ~

~ The load and the way overloaded - This is something I know I wil get to see and finally SAW. YEAY! Why am so excited, coz you see on TV and at times I wonder whether the TV exegerated it or not... NOW, I got to see it and it's not half THAT BAD! Really... put yourself in their condition, ok lor hor. However, the overload human part was a weeeee bit dangerous I thought, apparently the same thing for train as well. NO! I didn't capture the human-overload-train (that WOULD be an interesting pics though). ~

The JOURNEY to Taj Mahal
Where should I begin
to tell a story of how great a love can be
a sweet love story that is older then the sea...


Would you be able to guess what song is this? Well, it's by Andy Williams entitle Love Story from an old movie - The Love Story. I guess that's how Shah Jehan thinks of his wife, I bet most of us has heard this story many a times before.What captured my eyes...

~ On L.O.V.E - It is said that Shah Jehan was so heartbroken after her death he undertook the task of erecting the world's most beautiful monument which is also one of his promised to her on her death bed. ~

~ On task - 22 years and 22,000 workers to construct the monument. ~

~ On balance - I was told that the design is symmetrical, you can view it from the entrance. Shah Jehan wants it to be perfect for his darling wife. ~

~ On myth - Heard this since I was little
a) Shah Jehan had planned to build black marbled Taj Mahal, which was to be his own tomb on the opposite bank of the River. It never got started due to conflict with this son’s as he deem it‘s a waste of country‘s money & time.
b) Shah Jehan does not want no one else to ever copy the masterpice, so he had the master craftsmans hands cut off. ~

Last but not least, Grace’s weird story again…. She’s kinda subconsciously entertaining without she herself realizing it, heehehheee… kinda miss not traveling with her. This year I MUST force her!

~ The Grace story (should follow same format maah) - As usual, something weird would come out from Grace lar… this time around it was the entrance fee. If I am not mistaken, the entrance fee for tourist is approximately RM75 and for locals is about RM25 (not sure whether this has changed). And as usual (again), I am the pay master for this trip lar cos according to her I handles the fund and budget for our department thus I should do the same ..ARGH….. (here I thought am having a holiday!).

I told the lady at the counter tix for 2 person, and she looked at us and asked - one LOCAL, one TOURIST. Obviously Grace looks like a tourist from China and me looked like local to her (am still surprise over this but HEY! Northern Hindi girl are beautiful THUS I don’t mind being a local! Hehehe….YEAY!) I honestly and obviously said “no” lar…. I paid accordingly. Grace asked me, why did I not lie, then we “untung” (profited) RM50?!?!?? Why lily? WHY? WHY?

And I said… “Yeah right! What if she starts talking to me in Hindi, what and how do you want me to reply? The only word I know is Namaste (Hello) and Shukhriya (Thank you), other then that would be Kuch Kuch Hota Hei which is a popular Hindi movie name of WHICH I STILL don’t know what it means!”… She burst out laughing… not sure on me or on herself though… but I sure knew I made the right decision. I mean, would you want to be caught for lying our origin status in this magnificent Taj Mahal - One of the Wonder of the World!?!? ~


Grace…. Grace….. Apa lar….. Hahahhaaa….

Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia, Taj Mahal Agra Tours, World Greatest, World Guides