Road Trip to TAJ MAHAL-The Real Beauty of India

On 11 th Feb ‘ 10 me and my brother just made the plan to visit the Taj Mahal. We had only One single day. I had visited Mathura , Vrindavan on this route many times but Agra I had visited 5-6 yrs back. So this time it was only TAJ MAHAL. We decided to leave Delhi early morning.

No. of adults – Two
1. Myself
2. My brother
My car – Maruti 800
Total distance covered in the trip – 440 Km

Agra is about 220 Km from my home.
I started my car at 5 am .We started from Rohini. Crossed Punjabi Bagh , Dhaula Kuan and reached Ashram Chowk at 5:45 am. Now we were on NH-2.

We crossed Sarita Vihar and reached Badarpur Border at 6 am. Border had traffic jam in the morning. As On the Badarpur Border , on one side Delhi Metro work is going on and on one side NHAI Flyover work is goin on. Finally after 20-25 min we crossed Border.

After that we crossed Faridabad , Ballabgarh and Palwal in not much time. After few minutes we crossed Hodal. I did not stopped the car as we did no want to waste much time and wanted to reach Agra early because we had to depart from Agra the same evening. Our only main target was Taj Mahal. We reached Agra finally at 10 am. We did not stopped even once on the route. Road condition were superb till Agra. NH-2 is always good as we all know.

Now we were in Agra. Parked my car. Then we went to visit Taj Mahal.

Entrance for TAJ MAHAL. The main gateway (darwaza) is a monumental structure built primarily of marble .Main gate of Taj Mahal faces South,it is 151 feet by 117 feet and has height of appox. 100 feets

The beauty of TAJ MAHAL was same as our earlier trip. Awesome Monument.
Construction start date: 1631 A.D
Construction end date: 1648 A.D
Time for Completion: 17 Years
Total workers 20000
Designer Ustad Ahmad Lahauri
UNESCO World Heritage Site 1983
ArchitectureType Islamic
Area of Taj Mahal 60 bighas
Location Utter Pardesh (India)
Highlights One of the Seven Wonders of the World
Timing 6.00 A.M to 7.30 P.M (Friday Closed)

TAJ MAHAL
The Taj Mahal (also “the Taj”) is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture.Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage .
Building began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, and employed thousands of artisans and craftsmen.In 1631, Shah Jahan, emperor during the Mughal empire’s period of greatest prosperity, was griefstricken when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died . Construction of the Taj Mahal began in 1632, one year after her death.

The marble dome that surmounts the tomb is the most spectacular feature. Its height of around 35 metres (115 ft) .The minarets, which are each more than 40 metres (130 ft) tall.

Amanat Khan Shirazi was the calligrapher of Taj Mahal,Ismail Khan Afridi of Turkey was the dome maker.
Material for building Taj Mahal was brought from all over India as well from centeral Asia as per the records a feelt of around 1000 elephants was employed for this purpose.
Centeral Tomb of Taj Mahal is around 187 feet in height.
Following material was brought from different regions,28 kinds of rare,precious stones has been used in Taj Mahal

Red Stones: Fatehpur Sikri
Jasper Punjab
Jade and Crystal China
Turquoise Tibet
Coal and Cornelian Arabia
Diamonds Panna

.

The handwriting written here is called Calligraphy. It basically includes the lines from the Quran.
The complex is set around a large 300-metre (980 ft) square charbagh or Mughal garden. The garden uses raised pathways that divide each of the four quarters of the garden into 16 flowerbeds.
One can enjoy night viewing of Taj Mahal for five nights in a month including the full moon night and two days before and after except Friday and month of Ramzan.
Below is the table which summerize the Night View detail.

Night Viewing Timings: 8.30PM to 12.30A.M
Number od batches 8 Total per night
Person per batch 50
Duration Half an hour
Reporting Place Shilpagram complex half an hour in advance of the viewing time
Entry Point Eastern gate only
Video camera Not allowed for night viewing
Booking Office Archaeological Survey of India, Agra Circle, 22 The Mall, Agra
Uttar Pradesh
Time for Booking 10.00 A.M to 6.00 P.M (one day in advance of night viewing)
Ticket cancellation Same office (up to 1 P.M on the day of viewing)
Cancellation Charges 25% of the ticket

Charges for full moon viewing –
Indian (adult) 510 INR
Foreigner (adult) 750 INR
Children (Foreigner) 500 INR

Taj Mahal Mosque or Masjid. This is basically a red sand stone building.

The total cost for building the TAJ MAHAL has been estimated to be about 32 million Rupees at that time. A labour force of twenty thousand workers was recruited across northern India.
Shah Jahan loved his wife so much that after the TAJ MAHAL was complete he cut the hands of the workers so that they could not make the same structure again.

After having the wonderful time there we visited the market there. My brother bought a pair of shoes as Agra is famous for its Leather products. Then we bought Panchhi Petha the famous sweet of Agra. By this time it was 5 pm. Now it was the time to leave .
I started the car at 5 pm from Agra and i knew that it will take a little longer to reach Delhi because it was now the traffic hours. We finally reached back Delhi at 11:20 pm.

A long tiring day ended. But it was still fun and we enjoyed the day and I enjoyed the driving too.
Thanks for reading :)