When I found out that we were for sure going to India and that we were going to arrive four days before the “team”* I knew we had to make a visit to the Taj Mahal happen. I have a thing for world wonders. They just recently officially named the new 7 world wonders. The Taj Mahal of course being one of them. For the record, I have now seen 3 out of 7. Not too shabby, huh?
Anyway, where the mission part of our trip was in relation to the Taj Mahal is the equivalent of a foreigner planning a trip to Florida but making sure they take a trip up to see the Statue of Liberty before they leave. Not exactly close, or easy to get to. We arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) and took a plane up to Delhi. For some reason the entire trip over I slept like someone had spiked my ginger ale with roofies. It was actually kind of bizarre. Once we got to the hotel at 11am we decided to take a nap and ended up waking up the next morning. I’m not even kidding. Thankfully we’d already arranged a car to take us the 4-5 hours from Delhi to Agra.
Yes, you read that right. It was a 4 hour taxi ride. One way. In crazy India traffic with their bumpy roads. Thankfully the cab had air conditioning because it was quite warm.
We knew we were getting close because we kept seeing signs for it. And then I gasped. There she was…
Our first glance. Surreal.
It was every bit as spectacular as I’d imagined it would be.
Oh hello gorgeous.
We took about 500 pictures. I won’t bore you with all of them. Needless to say, I was blown away.
We hired Raj as our tour guide. He peppered us with all kinds of fun facts, some of which may have been true and others I know were just made up. He made them sound good anyway. I’m so glad we hired him though because he was able to take a bunch of picture of both Joel and I together.
He said a million times, the Taj is the symbol of love. Aws.
Waving to Raj.
Actually touching the Taj Mahal. A big dream come true and a moment I will never, ever forget.
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*the “team” being one other person (the founder of the non-profit group we went with) who ended up not getting his visa in time and not coming at all leaving Joel and I basically on our own. In India. Yeah. More on that later.