Recently, I had been to Northern India for the first time in my life. I visited Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur - some of the most historical places in Northern India and an area known as Golden Triangle.
We arrived in Delhi late on December 10th, and totally crashed at the hotel room. The next day, we explored New and Old Delhi.
Stop 1 : Delhi, India's capital
In Delhi, we visited a very recently built temple called Akshardham. This temple is devoted to a saint called Swaminarayan. He was a supreme devotee to Lord Krishna, an incarnation of the God of Protection, Vishnu. This structure is totally amazing. Absolutely no metal was used around the shrine. The only metal that was used was pure gold, which was used to carve out the idol of Saint Swaminarayan. Every single God in the Hindu religion has been carved out around the shrine, which is over 3 million gods! And the most amazing fact is that everything, EVERYTHING, was hand carved!!
Our next tourist spot was the Red Fort, one of the many forts belonging to the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan was the builder of the Taj Mahal as well. The fort, obviously, was for protection and was in the color red. What amazed me was that there was a moat, back then, filled with crocodiles and poisonous snakes. All there is now is long, long weeds. All the structures in the fort were absolutely grand, especially the private quarters of the king. Under the quarters of the king, there used to be fights between animals for the king's entertainment and amusement. Pretty cool!
Stop 2 : Agra
In Agra, we visited one of the spectacular wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is a tomb for Shah Jahan’s wife. Just like in the pictures you see often, the Taj Mahal is grand and really, really shiny white. I learned a bit of history on this amazing structure:
1. There are two mosques on either side of the Taj. The weight of the two mosques is equivalent to the weight of the Taj Mahal by itself. All three structures are all built on one single beam underground. So to balance, the weights are both equal.
2. The 4 minarets around the Taj Mahal are placed slightly (like one degree) away from the structure, just in case when a earthquake hits, the structure won’t get destroyed by the minarets.
3. Ever since Shah Jahan had built the structure, the real corpse has been “stored” under the Taj, and what all the tourists see are replicas.
4. Once the Taj was fully built, Shah Jahan had planned to build a replica of the Taj in Black Marble. But he died before the plans could get finalized and no one fulfilled his plan.
Well that’s quite a bit of history for one structure.
Stop 3 : Jaipur
The next day, in our last tourist city, Jaipur, we visited the Amer Fort, nowadays called Amber Fort. To get to this fort, we were taken on an elephant! It was a great experience. That place was a great maze. Anyone there could get lost. Thankfully we had a tour guide. There were so many staircases leading to somewhere amazing. We didn’t have the time to stop and go up them, but if we did, I would go up every single one. But that Fort was above amazing. Absolutely wonderful!
Well that concluded our trip to Northern India. I consider myself fortunate enough to take a trip with as much fun and history as Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur.
