Well, we just got back from the Taj. What can I say, it was really cool. And it was also fun to learn about the women's tourism world from my travelling partners Beth and Sumitra. Beth is the author of "Wanderlust and Lipstick" (www.wanderlustandlipstick.com) as mentioned previously, and she had a meeting with Sumitra who started an Indian tourism company for women called WOW (Women on Wanderlust - www.wowsumitra.com). They were nice enough to let me tag along, and I got to take a picture that could end up on the cover of Beth's book - so that is exciting.

The Taj is truly worth of it's place as one of the seven wonders. I was skeptical, I have to admit. It just never seemed that cool in the art books. But in person, it is amazing. The massiveness is one thing, but the detail work is another. Look at the script pictured above. This stuff is all over it! And also these nice little floral designs. The thing I will remember most is that up right next to it the floor is all time smoothed marble. Really really smooth. You have to take off your shoes to even go up there. It is closed Fridays because it still functions as a mosque (the mosque is actually a side structure, the Taj is a tomb for the builder's wife which most of you probably know). Sumitra told me today that Shah Jahan (yup, same guy as yesterday's story who was usurped by his son and built the throne room with a flowing stream of hot perfumed water) was said to have cut the hands off of all the artisans who worked on it so they couldn't replicate it somewhere else. It makes me feel less sorry for him being usurped and all. A side note - the other interesting story about Aurungzaeb the usurping son is that he is credited by some with the downfall of the Moghul empire. He was so worried his children would do to him what he did to Shah Jahan that he kept them uneducated, and thus when he grew old there was noone to take charge.

What else... traffic traffic traffic. This town has traffic even a New Yorker wouldn't ask to trade for. Driving seems to be thought of as a contact sport. Lanes designations are optional. Usually as the driver your goal is to try to ride the center divider of a 2 lane highway to block people from passing on one side and to easily maneuver around the people, cyclists, motorcyclists, herds of cows, camels pulling huge carts, buses, tractors, pedal rickshaws, autoricksaws (taxi-motos that have three wheels), etc. When you come up behind one of those things your goal is to honk honk honk ("here I come") and they get out of your way and you zoom along past them. The bigger trucks all actually have signs painted on the back that say "Blow Horn". By the way, I was serious about the camels. And the cows, they not only go parallel to traffic, they cut right across it. I have already more than once been in a huge traffic jam which was caused by or had as a part of its mix a pack of cattle being herded through the middle of it by a 9 year old boy.

Tomorrow I fly down to the south, to Chennai, where things are supposed to be a bit mellower. The plan as it stands now is to strike out fairly quickly for ex-french colony town Pondicherry on the ocean. Croissants, mmmm.

Adios,

John

P.S. Oh, the Gandhi quote (thanks for the spellcheck Mom):

"Perhaps never before has there been so much speculation about the future as there is today. Will our world always be one of violence? Will there always be poverty, starvation, misery? Will we have a firmer and wide belief in religion, or will the world be godless? If there is to be a great change in society, how will that change be wrought? By war, or revolution? Or will it come peacefully?

Different men give different answers to these questions, each man drawing the plan of tomorrow's world as he hopes and wishes it to be. I answer not only out of belief but out of conviction. The world of tomorrow will be, must be, a society based on non-violence. That is the first law; out of it all other blessings will follow." - M.K. Gandhi

PPS sorry the charger's lost Jim and the san diego-ans. It looked like we gave it a good shot.