Quickly changed into my everyday clothes, I went down for breakfast a little before 7am. Considering the bustling day I had just the day before, I was exhausted... but we still had a schedule to follow, and one I was looking forward to! We departed for Agra from the hotel early in our civil dresses. Instead of having breakfast before we left, we had it on the bus.
After a long bus ride with most of us sleeping or chatting amongst ourselves, we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, a town predominantly built from red sandstone by the Mughal emperor Akbar between the years of 1571 and 1573. It displays the Mughal architecture well and has been the capital of the Mughal Empire for 10 years. The town is also known as the "city of victory."
Our next destination and the 'highlight' of the trip was the Taj Mahal. Built between 1631 and 1648 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the memory of Mumtaz Mahal, his beloved wife who passed away in childbirth, the monument houses the cenotaphs of both Mumtaz Mahal and Shan Jahan. It was mostly made from ivory-white marble, and it is said that 20,000 people took part in its building process. In 1983, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for being "one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage."
I had been to Taj Mahal once before when my grandparents came to visit India, but due to the especially foggy whether that made the white marble almost look like it's a part of it, I could not fully make out the monument clearly. It was still somewhat foggy, but I could definitely make it out better than the last time. Although I had seen pictures of it countless times before, seeing the actual monument right in front of my eyes made it look even more grand in size. We had around an hour to look around.
Our final destination was a hotel (not the one we're staying in for the quiz), where we watched a performance by a traditional Indian dance team and participated in it. It brightened up our mood after a long day, and everyone was laughing after a while. We ate dinner there as well.
When we reached our hotel, it was well over the estimated time. It had been a busy day, and although we rested up quite a lot on the bus, having to be in a vehicle for such a long time itself took a great toll on us- this was enough to make us go straight to bed.
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