Taj Mahal

We visited the Taj Mahal on November 6th. It's hard to describe, it was so beautiful. I found that the Taj Mahal is not sitting by itself, but there are 3 gates around it and a mosque on the left and a temple on the right, to keep everything symmetrical. The whole thing is totally symmetrical. On the main and most elegant gate, there are 22 domes, similar to the ones on the Taj itself. The 22 domes represent the 22 years it took to complete the Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. She became very sick and was going to die after giving birth. Her last wish to him was to build a monument so the world would know their story. Shah Jahan looked at many designs for the monument and finally chose this Persian design. Then, he hired many architects to build the Taj Mahal. Now, these workers didn't have today's technology, this was the 16th century. They used ramps that were at least 1 mile long to push marble to the top dome. On the marble, they have stones inlaid in the marble in different designs, which is very beautiful and extremely detailed. Inside, Mumtaz Mahal is buried there and so is Shah Jahan, but nobody can see the real caskets anymore. It gets too crowded. They have replicas in the center. Mumtaz is perfectly centered, and Shah Jahan is next to her, not centered. There were slabs of marble that a pattern had been cut into. It was amazing.
That's all for the Taj Mahal. Keep in touch and updated for my trip in India.