Mumtaj Mahal

.....Along the road in he morning we saw  many milk carriers delivering milk to the city.

Helen spoke to an English tour guide at the hotel last night and he gave her a contact number to book a proper guide. If you are interested phone Ashok +91 9639 854279. Or if you want an interesting north india approved tourist guide with a History degree and fluent English contact Anshul Jain anshuljain15@yahoo.com

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum built by Emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaj. The other two wives are buried elsewhere in the grounds but their graves are inaccessible now, unlike in 1975. 

Inside the tomb has changed over 40 years. Firstly there are far more people,  being shepherded by a security man blowing a whistle and it was quite noisy. It's not very fitting for a mausoleum where there should be hushed voices. Last time I walked in the actual tomb ( I think) but now visitors are restricted to a duplicate set of tombs inlaid with cornelian, coral, malachite, lapis lazuli and turquoise. We later watched a demonstration by skilled craftsmen making intricate flowers using the same techniques. 

Visitors come from all over India. We saw Kasmiris wrapped in pashminas, a family from South India and spotted these two from North East India near the Burmese border. Their home town is Meghalaya, North of Kolkatta and East of Nepal. They have government jobs preventing the locals from clearing forest by teaching them how to improve land productivity instead. Their faces bear characteristics of Burmese/Assam/Chinese people. They proudly wore their waistcoats and head scarves showing off their origins.  In case you are wondering about the footwear.....we were all wearing them to keep the marble clean. 

You are not permitted to sell here. 

It was a very successful visit and the weather was lovely...fog cleared by 10 am.

Two happy customers.