Agra

This morning me and Sue arrived in Agra on the night train from Varanasi...the night train from hell!!!! I exaggerate but seriously: the train station double booked one of our beds with another tourist...luckily we got on the train first and were sitting in it( possession is truly 9/10ths of the law) but since they were short a seat he sat in the seat of this poor Indian man who, now having no seat, we invited to share our small 2 person bench seat! Well, at night you fold down the seats into beds and the Indian man went to his top bunk bed leaving me and Sue to close the curtain and officially assume the property! The couple left without a bed called the conductor who awarded it to us so they had to share a bed spoon-like( we had enough spooning on the plane) We felt bad but it's war on the Indian rails!!!! Then to top it off...the train was 3 hours late arriving in Agra and our driver arranged through the hotel wasn't there! So we got a cab and also arranged with him to drive us later to do all our sight seeing.
Today we are going an hour out of town to see Fatephr Sikri( an abandon ghost town) and then tonight before dinner we are going to a vantage point across the river to view the Taj Mahal at sunset and take photos!

Tomorrow we are waking up at dawn and going onto the grounds of the Taj to see it up close!

The Taj Mahal is one of the world's seven wonders and pretty much everyone has seen countless pictures of it but very few people know the love story behind this monument.

The Taj Mahal is a tomb, and a monument to love. It begins in 1612, when a Persian princess Arjumand Bano married Shah Jahan, the fifth (and most famous) mongal empiror. They fell in love at age 14 when they met randomly at a market. The next day the then Prince made an unusual and bold request to his father(in those days you did not marry for love alone): he had fallen in love at first sight and wanted to marry the princess. His father granted permission and for the entire period before their marriage they were not allowed to meet, a full five years of their engagement passed without ever once laying eyes on each other again.

Finally, on March 27, 1612, when all the calculations of the astrologers were in accord, the long anticipated wedding took place. He gave her the title Mumtaz Mahal (Jewel of the Palace). She was his favorite wife and he was so in love with Mumtaz that he showed little interest in exercising his polygamous rights with the two earlier wives, other than dutifully siring a child with each. She was charitable woman giving food to the peasants and silver to the beggars who called to her each morning outside the brick walls of the palace. She was compassionate and every day would draw up lists of helpless widows and orphans and making certain that the prince attended to their needs. And she was generous by supporting hundreds of poor families and arranging pensions for hundreds more. After giving birth to Shah Jahan's 14th child at age 39 she died in 1631. The emperor was heartbroken and, according to history, the entire court mourned her death for the next 2 years. During this period, there was no music, parties or celebrations of any kind in the entire kingdom. It is even said that, within a few months after the queen's death, the hair and beard of the king had turned white. And Shah Jahan was recklessly determined on building a monument in his wife's loving memory that the world had never seen. A group of the finest architects was assembled to devise a plan for erecting the tomb. A total of 20,000 labourers and a fleet of 1000 elephanst from across the country and the world were employed to work for 22 years continuously. The finest of marbles were procured and precious and semi precious stones were brought from far off places. The Taj Mahal was completed in 1643 and Shah Jahan’s beloved Mumtaz Mahal was finally laid to rest.

Sadly for the Shah, he didn’t get to enjoy the Taj for long. He was imprisoned by his own son who took over the throne in 1658. Either as cruel torture or as a gesture of compassion, he locked his father in a room of the Agra Fort that afforded the elder a clear but distant view of the Taj. When Shah Jahan died 8 years later, he was buried alongside his wife in the Taj Mahal, unaware that his final resting place would later become known as the most beautiful building the world has ever seen. Their real tombs are in a basement of the Taj Mahal.