Next we went to a beautiful building nicknamed the Baby Taj. Its real name is the Tomb of I’timad-ud-Daulah and it’s considered to be a first draft of the Taj Mahal.  It was the first tomb in India made entirely out of marble.  It is commonly described as a “jewel box” because the white walls are encrusted with semi-precious gems set into elaborate designs. It also features beautifully carved latticed screens made of marble.  There was a fee to get into the complex, but I can’t remember what it was. I loved this building. I thought it was gorgeous. The interior is much more notable than the interior of the Taj Mahal.

Then we went to the Mehtab Bagh park which is famed for its view of the Taj Mahal from the other side of the Yamuna River. Apparently it used to be free and was nothing more than a giant sandlot, but the government swooped in and restored it back to Mughal garden status and started charging 100 rupees for foreigners to enter (5 for Indians).  E and I decided not to pay the entry fee, but instead we walked down to the end of the road where you could also see the Taj, although partially obscured by tree branches. I realized that if we walked through the woods to our right, we might get a better view. So we headed that way. Almost immediately a group of children appeared and started telling us in broken English to turn around and go back. They were clearly assigned to keep people out of this area so that no one could get a free view of the Taj. We ignored them and pressed on. When we got to an open area where we could clearly see the Taj, we tried taking pictures, but one of the kids kept swinging a stick at us and blocking us from taking photos. He even accidentally hit Elizabeth with the stick.  It was ridiculous.

After that we asked our driver to let us explore a different park. We thought there was a Taj Mahal viewing point inside the park. The park was massive and we roamed it for over an hour without finding any view point. It was a very nice park, full of men, dogs, ice-cream-stealing monkeys, and flowers. But as dusk arrived, some sketchy characters came out so we bailed and walked back to our tuk tuk via the street instead of back through the park.

If you’re like me, you don’t research stuff very much and maybe don’t know anything about the Taj Mahal. So here are a few interacting factoids:

The Taj Mahal was built in honor of Mumtaz Mahal, the third and favorite wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, after she died in while giving birth to their 14th child.  She was 40 years old.  They are both buried in crypts beneath the building. Construction started in 1632, one year after she died, and it took 22 years to complete.  It took more than 22,000 workers and 1,000 elephants to build the Taj.   A few years after completion, the Emperor’s son had him arrested and locked in a fort where he could only view the Taj from a window until he died 8 years later. Legend has it that Shah Jahan had the hands of the architect and the thumbs of the workers cut off after the building was completed so that an identical building could never be made, but I read that this is a myth.  It is made of all-white marble and inlaid with 28 different kinds of precious and semi-precious stones, many of which were stolen by the British during an attack in 1857.  It is one of the world’s most symmetrical buildings.  Because of the reflective qualities in the white marble, the Taj appears to change color throughout the day.  It has a pinkish hue at sunrise, is glowing white during the day, and appears golden in moonlight.  On full moon nights you can actually enter the Taj complex after dark.  It is supposed to be spectacular.  However, unfortunately the walls are rapidly turning yellow due to air pollution and acid rain.  In order to better preserve the building, no large factories exist in Agra and the ones that do run on electric energy only.  Also, no cars are allowed within several blocks of the complex.  The Taj Mahal 17-hectare complex contains a working mosque and is therefore closed on Fridays for prayer. The Taj was declared one of the “New” Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.