Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

Built as a mausoleum for his third wife, the love of his life, who died whilst giving birth to his 14th child, Emperor Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal was destined to be a highlight of our trip to India. There are some things that you have to see for yourself because photos just don't do them justice, the Taj Mahal is one of those things. Upon entering the walled defences, the first glimpse of the magnificent, shiny marble building is breathtaking. Not only was it a work of love (twenty two years in the making), it is a work of art and genious, symmetrical in as many ways as possible. There was even meant to be a matching black marble Taj Mahal on the opposite side of the river for the king to be buried in, but his son decided his dad was being a fool spending too much money, and instead placed him next to the queen inside the white Taj, destroying the symmetry of it all.

We may not have got up early enough to see the Taj at sunrise but I still think it was worth the early start since as we were leaving (9am-ish) the sun was already becoming fiendishly hot and the crowds were beginning to swarm!

Several hours later we were back in Delhi, this time in the suburb of New Delhi which was a world away from the Old Delhi we had experienced two days ago. Suddenly there was order, wide roads and pavements, well kept parks and fancy buildings. Finally we could see the influence of the good old Brits and their empiring days.

We boarded our train bound for Amiritsar and found something that the Indians do far better than the Brits. Our ten pound, five hour train journey included being served with a whole manner of free meals from afternoon tea, dinner and ice-cream. It felt like we were travelling in style, I think British rail should take note!