We had an early morning departure for our 12 hour road trip to Agra. I am very excited to see the Taj Mahal. Throughout my life, I have always heard Taj Mahal to describe something as the best of the best, well now I'm about to experience the one and only.
On the way to Agra, we stopped off at The Well of Chand Baori. This site is a huge man made well that has stair leading the whole way down. The well really fills up after the monsoon season and is used to provide water for the whole town. Keeping up with India's cleanliness standards, at the end of the monsoon, there are diving board type structures that people would dive into the well from. Remember that that is where the town drank from. This structure was built around 300 AD.
After another couple hours in the bus, we stopped off at the Fatehpur Sikri, which is a large palace where a king of the area used to live. He was famous for creating a religion that combined Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The palace was pretty interesting, and the history of the ruler was even better. He began his rule at age 14 and had many wives. His philosophy of combining religions to relieve the people of conflict was ingenious. To think that more blood has been shed because of religion than anything else is hard to think about, especially since one of the foundations of every religions is peace and love...
Now I am sitting at the hotel in Agra. Tomorrow morning we are waking up really early to catch the sunrise at the Taj Mahal. Can I rush in and get a photo with no one in the background? Only time will tell and anything is possible.
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