Monsoons, Taj Mahal, and Final Goodbyes to GAP friends

6/9 – As our tour is coming to an end, we get long hours upon the bus to contemplate everything we saw for the last week and a half. The poverty, the simple lives, the humbleness of the common Indian, and the unfortunate opportunities they don’t get to have depending on to which caste system and in which location they are born. A girl born in the little village of Ranakpur or Jojawar will probably work alongside her family with very basic schooling, then will be married off around the age of 15 or 16 and live her life with the husband who probably learned the family trade and continues to same business. But in the states we have opportunities to do so much with our lives. I respect the simple lives these people leave but I also would like the opportunity to choose my own path and desires. That’s why I’m changing my own career plans to try to help the people with no opportunities to have those opportunities in the future.

So today we are on our way from Jaipur towards Bharatpur where we went to the Galta Gi Temple – Otherwise known as the Monkey Temple because it is filled with monkeys and you can actually hand feed them, but watch out for the babies, if you get too close the mother will attack you. Next we went to the ancient ruins of the Abhaneri Step Wall which is amazing to see… they have zigzagging steps going down 20 meters deep, and the temple is filled with little cave rooms with Hindu god carvings. This place was beautiful to say the least and seemed like something out of National Geographic. We finally landed in the small town of Bharatpur and after just settling in we were hit by a Monsoon, it was really nice actually because it helped cool down the very hot temperatures. So in the midst of the monsoon some of us actually went swimming in their pool.

6/10 – I just finished reading “Man and Islam” by Dr. Ali Shariati. It’s a small book but tons of good information and I love his style of teaching. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone, no matter what religion or politics.

So today we left to Agra which houses the famous Taj Mahal. We will see the Taj tomorrow but will have a lot of sites to see today. On the bus journey we learned about the Mughal emperor that is well regarded by the Hindu’s, Akbar the Great, because he didn’t force Islam on the people and created his own teaching called Deen-e-Elahe which stresses that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. So the next site we went to go see what Fatehpur Sikri which was built by Akbar the Great. As his story goes, he had two wives, 1 Muslim and 1 Christian but neither bore him any sons. He was going to go to war with a city that was under his rule due to their negligence of paying taxes, but the night before they came to him offering him peace with a marriage of the head of the city’s daughter. Akbar the Great agreed and married the Hindu wife which he loved very much, and she was blessed by a Muslim priest at this site and ended up getting pregnant and bore Akbar the Great his first son. So in honor to this priest he shifted his whole empire to this site and built this site called Fatehpur Sikri which embraces the architecture of all three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. There are not many places where you will see this combination of architecture.

Another place we visited that was also built by Akbar the Great is called Agra Fort or Red Fort since it made mainly out of Red Sandstone. This place was huge and is still used today by the Indian Military. From here we visited the Mini Taj Mahal which houses the graves of his Hindu wife’s family.

After this visit most of us were pretty beat, so we finally checked into our hotel in Agra and some of us found the hookah bar across the street :)

6/11 – Our tour guide was very smart, we woke up at 4 AM so we can be at the Taj Mahal bright and early by 5 AM right when they open. So we were like the first people entering and basically had the place to ourselves, nice and empty and stunningly beautiful. It was amazing to see such a structure up close… the White Marble and decor of the best colorful stones found (ruby’s, sapphires, etc.). So the Taj Mahal (which means crown palace) was built by Shah Jahan who was the grandson of Akbar the Great. His wife (Mumtaz Mahal) as she was passing asked him to not remarry and to build something in honor of their love that will last ages, he agreed and spent much of his money on this building out of his love for his wife. After his 3^rd son killed off the first two sons to be next in-line as Emperor, he then imprisoned his father for not strictly following Islamic code (Our tour guide says this son is probably one of the original wahabbis). Shah Jahan was imprisoned a km away from the Taj but his window didn’t give him access to see it directly, so he positioned a mirror outside the window in which he could see the Palace and that is what he spent the rest of his life doing. The Taj Mahal is most beautiful at night. The white marble used is the 2^nd best after the diamond, and it is translucent. Our guide put a flashlight to the material and you can see it glow… so when it’s a full moon the place glows with beauty.

From here we packed up our stuff and headed back to New Delhi, and along the way I caught our tour guide Govind with his pants down :) Peeing outdoors is very common in India by the men, they will pee almost anywhere. It’s sad to see all the trash everywhere as well. You would think with all the values of humility towards animals and all they would at least try to keep their streets and towns clean, but that’s not the case and they litter everywhere.

Next we had our sad moments where we said goodbye to our two very nice and funny bus drivers, Mr. Singh and Hardeep (who I call the Great Khali b/c he is big and always wears the Great Khali t-shirt).

Then we had our Goodbye dinner with the rest of the tour people, exchanged emails and everything, and went back to the hotel. I will miss them all and had a great time with all of them, hopefully will see them in the future. Well, I’m still going to remain in India for another 2 weeks, then hopefully if I can get into Pakistan for Dannesh’s wedding, then onto Egypt where I will hit up another wedding with my Salma from VivaPalestina :)