Saturday, March 13, 2010

Epitome of LOVE - The Taj Mahal



Day 3 (27 October 2004). How lucky Mumtaz Mahal is... to love and be LOVED.


It's not the desination BUT the journey

After visiting India, I have to admit, not only I was wrong in many ways (mind my ignorant yah, at least am honest :P ) but I was overwhelmed by every single way too.

Let's start with...

The JOURNEY to Agra.

Ahhhh...... Agra! Everyone will know where Taj Mahal is located but NOT many know which city it is located in. I didn't either UNTIL my trip to India. The drive took 4 hours (if I can remember correctly, after all, the trip was in 2004!!!). Grace booked the ride from travel agent to take us the Golden Triangle Route - Delhi > Agra > Jaipur > Delhi. We rode in what I believe India national car TATA car, cute little comfy car. We went thru a 2 lane road ie to and fro lar.... not much car but plenty of lorries. And when I say plenty, I meant REALLY PLENTY! Few things that interest me during this journey...

~ The rest stop area cum restaurant - I mean, check it out! Its cool, clean PLUS the food was great! Clean is what I definately did not expect, I was thinking; since it's out of the Delhi city - here I thought of the worse of the mighty worst. BUT...SURPRISE! SURPRISE! Make me pai sei! Malaysia R&R doesn't even look half this interesting! Infact, this kinda look like a resort hor... ~

~ The load and the way overloaded - This is something I know I wil get to see and finally SAW. YEAY! Why am so excited, coz you see on TV and at times I wonder whether the TV exegerated it or not... NOW, I got to see it and it's not half THAT BAD! Really... put yourself in their condition, ok lor hor. However, the overload human part was a weeeee bit dangerous I thought, apparently the same thing for train as well. NO! I didn't capture the human-overload-train (that WOULD be an interesting pics though). ~

The JOURNEY to Taj Mahal
Where should I begin
to tell a story of how great a love can be
a sweet love story that is older then the sea...



Would you be able to guess what song is this? Well, it's by Andy Williams entitle Love Story from an old movie - The Love Story. I guess that's how Shah Jehan thinks of his wife, I bet most of us has heard this story many a times before.What captured my eyes...

~ On L.O.V.E - It is said that Shah Jehan was so heartbroken after her death he undertook the task of erecting the world's most beautiful monument which is also one of his promised to her on her death bed. ~

~ On task - 22 years and 22,000 workers to construct the monument. ~


~ On balance - I was told that the design is symmetrical, you can view it from the entrance. Shah Jehan wants it to be perfect for his darling wife. ~

~ On myth - Heard this since I was little
a) Shah Jehan had planned to build black marbled Taj Mahal, which was to be his own tomb on the opposite bank of the River. It never got started due to conflict with this son’s as he deem it‘s a waste of country‘s money & time.
b) Shah Jehan does not want no one else to ever copy the masterpice, so he had the master craftsmans hands cut off. ~

Last but not least, Grace’s weird story again…. She’s kinda subconsciously entertaining without she herself realizing it, heehehheee… kinda miss not traveling with her. This year I MUST force her!

~
The Grace story (should follow same format maah) - As usual, something weird would come out from Grace lar… this time around it was the entrance fee. If I am not mistaken, the entrance fee for tourist is approximately RM75 and for locals is about RM25 (not sure whether this has changed). And as usual (again), I am the pay master for this trip lar cos according to her I handles the fund and budget for our department thus I should do the same ..ARGH….. (here I thought am having a holiday!).


I told the lady at the counter tix for 2 person, and she looked at us and asked - one LOCAL, one TOURIST. Obviously Grace looks like a tourist from China and me looked like local to her (am still surprise over this but HEY! Northern Hindi girl are beautiful THUS I don’t mind being a local! Hehehe….YEAY!) I honestly and obviously said “no” lar…. I paid accordingly. Grace asked me, why did I not lie, then we “untung” (profited) RM50?!?!?? Why lily? WHY? WHY?

And I said… “Yeah right! What if she starts talking to me in Hindi, what and how do you want me to reply? The only word I know is Namaste (Hello) and Shukhriya (Thank you), other then that would be Kuch Kuch Hota Hei which is a popular Hindi movie name of WHICH I STILL don’t know what it means!”… She burst out laughing… not sure on me or on herself though… but I sure knew I made the right decision. I mean, would you want to be caught for lying our origin status in this magnificent Taj Mahal - One of the Wonder of the World!?!?
~


Grace…. Grace….. Apa lar….. Hahahhaaa….




Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia, Taj Mahal Agra Tours, World Greatest, World Guides

19 comments:

fufu said...

wow taj mahal... did you also go to blue city?? i have just checked out my friends album... they had a blast in india... and they said... india is not that dirty instead... friendly people, neat and nice weather in Feb... i so wanna go there... >< some of your pictures here are real good... you must have a very good camera with you at that time ya

manglish said...

taj very mahal hahahaahha....great pics lily...

Ice said...

Do you need to apply for tourist visa to visit India?

Lily Riani said...

fufu,

didnt go to the blue city but pink city i did go - jaipur's the name i thk. its neighbouring town of agra.

we went for 1 week plus, and we underestimated india. must to a repeat soon now that AA flies there directlly. and what your friend said is correct.

we were using hewlett-packard camera....ehheheh not changgih cam.


manglish,

yes! very mahal indeed.hhahahaaa...

ai shiang,

yes, visa required for malaysian if i can remember it accurately.

Shingo T said...

They say that it pays to be honest.

Ya, you paid for it! =p

Liudmila said...

We believe in such love stories to be true and desire it happens with us too, but the reality is maybe not so beautiful. It's strainge the son was so bad with his father without any reason. Maybe the father was mad after the death of his wife. Who knows...

Lily Riani said...

shingto t,

ahahhahah...... its ok lar...i do feel good.

liudmila,

apparently, at taht point of time, they were facing war and the fathers heart was gone to his beloved wife that building a black taj mahal was his priorities. his son was perhaps dissapointed as the ctry needed the resources and money for the war. else they be gone without anything. he was a good son to the ctryman.

Biqque said...

nape bila orang bina castle je ada cite yang sama kan? kelly's castle pun camtu...

TG said...

Great pics, Lily Riani Globetrotter, hehe. OMG, you've been everywhere. And guess what, maybe you don't see well in Malaysia, but I've seen Malaysians overloading their poor motorbikes with load twice as big, hehe. Ok, not like that photo, but still. So Lily, open your eyes, Malaysia is as exciting as India :P

Greetings from Macau :)

Lily Riani said...

biqque,

kan! kan! kan.... hobby kot...ehheheh

mkl,

i dont think so you can see on main road in malaysia though. perhaps one can see it at the villages here but then again we don't have hays....ahahha....hence pretty interesting to see one. we don't overload human as such too - way too dangerous. however, i do see 2 adults plus kid on bike. small housing area or perhaps villages you can see 2 adults plus 2 kids.

Wenny said...

The next time I go travelling, I'm going to adopt your attitude, Girl! Your enjoyment flushes thru all the pics.

They say a picture can tell a story ... yours tell the excitement, genuine awe, joy and pleasure of the globetrotter.

Unknown said...

I can see you are happy just to go traveling,,, looks like i need to wait for my children to grow up first before i embark on the travelling adventure,,hahahah

Anonymous said...

Amazing pictures!

Thank you for the comment on my blog today. I just wanted to let you know that you do not currently have your profile enabled to show your email to other bloggers when you leave a comment for them, so I am unable to respond to the comments you leave on my blog via your e-mail.

Lily Riani said...

wenny,

i guess i truly enjoy traveling, some of my collie said it's part of my job. hahahhah you too must take a break n travel - go with the flow.

eugene,

travel with kids... i tried before, its funner.

eyegirl,

thanks for your comment, let me see how to enable it ;)

Chibi Maruko said...

i love india, been there tahun 2002, 40 days backpacking dekat south, dec nanti pegi lagi sebulan, kali ni kat north pulak. tenguk gambar gambar ni buat tak sabar nak kembali ke india :)

Lily Riani said...

chibi maruko,

wow! 40 days, envious sesangat! you must go up to kashmir.

Miles Of Style said...

OMG!! I totally enjoyed reading this post...especially coz I just visited the Taj last month. Guess what the myth about Shah Jahan wanting to build a black taj is true...him cutting the hands of his workers not true though.

As for you being mistaken as an Indian...how cool! They kept mistaking me for a foreigner actually when Im totally Indian. I even had to show them my drviing license and speak to them in Hindi to prove myself :P

And Kuch kuch hota hai -- hahaha! yes that was a huge blockbuster some years back. It means "something something happens" :P :P

Great Great post sweetie!!

Lily Riani said...

persis,

wow! you are sooo lucky to visit taj mahal in winter - less heat.

there so many myth going around the build of taj mahal amking it more romantic i think.

my absolute fav - dilwale dulhania la jayengge. ahhahah...

J_on_tour said...

Amazing place and pictures. One of the places I would like to go to.

( I was offered a chance to work with a friend to train staff in Mumbai for a month but it was complicated getting time off work....shame)

Maybe you should of pretended that Kuch Kuch Hota Hei was showing on the side wall of the Taj as a promotion to the tourists.... It's an incredible cinema building !!!







Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...