Day 2: The Taj Mahal, India, Asia

Oh my, gosh! I am here! I’m finally here! I am in India! And not only that, I am in Agra, standing right in front of the Taj Mahal!

I am absolutely excited about being here. Partly because, as I have told you before, I have always wanted to travel and see all kinds of different landmarks. But do you remember how I also said that I have always wanted to meet my family? Yeah, well, right now we are in Agra, and Agra is in India. And apparently, in India, they have heaps and heaps of monkeys. And as you know, I am a monkey. And even though I am a stuffed monkey, if I meet a few monkeys, I might have a slight chance of finding out about my family.

Anyway, I can hear our tour guide saying a whole lot of interesting facts about the Taj Mahal. Let me just listen in closer…

“Did you know,” the tour guide is saying, “ That the Taj Mahal has about 3 million foreign tourists and 15 million Indians visit the Taj Mahal each year? No lie!

And did you know that Isa Mohammad Khan designed the Taj Mahal? He did! And Ustad Isa of Persia assisted him. Quazim Khan of Lahore did all the golden embroidery works, while Amanat Ali Khan of Iran did the calligraphy. And Mohammad Arif was the chief supervisor. That isn’t a lie either!”

“And did you know that elements of Persian, Central Asian and Islamic architecture were used to construct the Taj Mahal. The name even means, “Crown Palace”. Even that’s not a lie!”

“The Emperor Shah Jehan made the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth. He had married her when he was 21, when he already had two children from an earlier wife. Mumtaz gave him 14 children in eighteen years, but only seven of them survived, and died at the age of 39 during the birth of the final child, a healthy baby girl. Shah Jehan made the Taj Mahal and named it after her, as a monument to her memory and fertility.”

“This building was one of hundreds of beautiful buildings that Shah Jehan made, most of them in Agra and in the New Delhi that was created under his planning. And the Emperor Shah Jehan began building an identical Taj Mahal, made with black marble instead of white, on the other side of the Yamuna River, and he was going to connect both them both with a bridge. Look, you can still see the base of it across the river!”

Our guide has stopped talking for a moment or two, to let us take a look. Wow! That is pretty cool. It really makes you think twice about the actual size of the Taj Mahal! Okay, the guide is now leading us to the entrance. He is asking us if we knew that the construction of the Taj Mahal started in 1631. And that 1,000 elephants were used to transport building materials during the construction. He tells us to look at the rock that is placed at the gateway. It says that it took 22,000 years and 22,000 people to construct the Taj Mahal. Hey, that means that it was finished in 1653.

Since we have paid 750 INR (Indian rupees), which is the same as $14.55 AUD, for Tianna’s Mum and Dad (the kids got in for free, because they are under 15), they have decided to take some photos. We are each getting a photo taken in front of the Taj Mahal and then we can go through the second gates. Okay, it’s my turn. I don’t exactly know what to do, so I am just going to do any random pose. Fenella tells me to say cheese. “Cheese!” And the tour guide is saying: “Did you know, that there is a famous photo of the Princess Dianna herself, sitting right in front of the Taj Mahal? There really is, see.” Now he is looking through a bunch of photo’s and maps and things on his clipboard. Now he is showing us the famous photo.

We are about to go through the second gates. Oh, wait’ the security guard is saying we have to leave our camera and cellphones in the locker facility until we come out. Fenella and James exchange a look before James takes all our stuff and puts it in a locker.

The guide still hasn’t stopped yacking on and on, saying things like:

“Did you know, that the pillars surrounding the Taj Mahal are slightly tilted outwards so that if there is an earthquake, they will fall away from the tomb? No lie!”

And “Did you know that the Taj Mahal appears to be pink in the morning, white in they day, a soft gray in the evening, and a golden colour in the moonlight? It does!”

And “And did you know that 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble?”

 And “Did you know, that the Emperor Shah Jehan ordered to chop off the hands of all the workers who had built the Taj Mahal, so no one could make anything like it?”

To be honest, I sort of lose interest after he says this. Right now, I am looking at a stuffed cat that a little girl is holding nearby. I wave to her, and she waves back. I tell Tianna, and the cat tells her owner. The other girl is looking at Tianna and is starting to walk towards us. This is good, they are talking, and so I have a chance to talk to the cat.

“Hi,” she says.  (Wow, she speaks perfect English, that’s surprising!) “My name is Katrina, but you can call me Kat. What’s your name?”

“ Paul” I say, “Are you here on a tour too or something, because you seem to speak perfect English!”

She says no, she lives in Delhi, but she can speak perfect English, because her owner, Dhara, bought her from a shop in Melbourne  when they were on holiday there last year. I tell her that that’s where I live! I  also tell her that I have always wanted to travel and meet my family.

We talked for a while until we were told to come with the rest of the family to see the tomb room. But it turns out that her owner went on this exact tour last year, that’s how she came to buy Kat. I had asked her opinion about finding my family, and she said that she doubted that any of the monkeys around here would know them. She said they were pretty annoying anyway. But she suggested that I try talking to the monkeys in Africa, which is good because that is the next tour we are going on.

We all have to take our shoes off to go into the tomb room. Unfortunately, we also have to listen to the tour guide, because he makes his voice loud enough to seep into every conversation. Like when Kat and me were talking about Indian food, he said: “Did you know that the Taj Mahal is worth around $100 million? Pretty cool, huh?”

And when we were looking at some of the carvings on the walls, he said: “Did you know that twenty thousand workers were employed for the construction work of the Taj Mahal?”

And now, while we are in the tomb room, looking at the ancient tombs, he starts again: “The Taj Mahal is perfectly symmetrical except for one small thing. The two tombs are not equal in size. That is because the male tomb has to be bigger than the female tomb. See for yourself!”

“Did you know that these are the actual tombs of both Mumtaz Mahal, and Shah Jehan? The tombs of the Taj Mahal are also known to be the symbols of the untiring love of an emperor for his beloved queen because their tombs were laid side by side.”

When we finish the tour of the Taj Mahal, we are very sad to leave, it has been so much fun. I don’t want to say goodbye to my new friend, but Tianna suggests that we be pen-pals, and that works for us. But before we go back to the hotel, we stop for Indian take-away food, and the curry is absolutely amazing! 


Right now, back at the hotel, I am helping Tianna pack up her luggage. In a few hours we are leaving for Delhi, and we will be going to the airport, so we can take the 4:00am flight to Africa!


I hope I can find someone who might know my family. Wait hang on, I have just found the container of the leftover curry on the counter. I might just have a few mouthfuls, just a few…