The Taj: Breathtaking beauty and romantic love (the building, not us)
One of the best things about this trip is the chance to experience a whole year’s worth of milestones and mundane things in fantastic places. We got to spend Valentine’s Day cycling around Angkor Wat, had dinner on random weeknights on gorgeous Thai beaches, and a few days ago Jordan even got a haircut and shave from the guy with the greatest hair in India.
This is the best one yet: We were thrilled to be able to spend our fifth wedding anniversary at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. It’s funny that it is known worldwide as a symbol of romantic love because it’s actually a mausoleum. It was built by Mughal emporer/playboy/romantic-at-heart Shah Jahan in the 1630s to enshrine the body of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to her fourteenth child (!!). Volumes have been written on the Taj Mahal’s perfection and seeing it in person left me completely awestruck. It is the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. Perfectly symmetrical, made out of white marble that literally GLOWS in the early morning sunlight, it looks plain from far away but it is actually covered in stunning, intricate inlays of flowers and Koranic verses. On the big day, we hopped in an auto-rickshaw, downed a chai, and got there at 5:30 a.m. Our early start was a great decision. We saw it in beautiful light and before the heat and the crowds descended. Yet even when it got packed (at around 9 a.m.), the grounds around the Taj are so vast and spacious, you can still find little nooks to call your own. This wedding anniversary will be hard to top.
