Touring the Taj Mahal

India is 12 time zones ahead of the United States at a minimum. That guarantees at least 16 hours of travel either on one of the handful of nonstops from the New York and Chicago or using a tried and true connection through Europe, most typically London. In my case it was an add-on following a stop in Hong Kong as part of a business trip to Asia. I knew this would most likely be my one and only time ever to go to India whether on mine or the company's dime so I was surely not about to waste the opportunity. This trip, once my business was taken care of, was all about the Taj Mahal, two hours by train south of Delhi along the river near the city of Agra.

After dealing with the train and working past the abject poverty of the surrounding streets a shockingly reasonable admission ticket provided access to the walled grounds of "the Taj." At the far end of the compound which allows for slack-jawed admirers of all ages and through the ages to stand and gawk at the pearl white features of the main building and the four minarets guarding each corner. Hyperboles have tried and failed to describe the stunning beauty of the creamy structure bathed in blue skies and surrounded by the greens and reds of the land and ground around it. I had the immediate feeling that to take the eye away from one view in favor of another was still to shortchange the whole as literally any vantage point and viewing angle was just as good as the next.

Amateur and professional photographers jockeyed for position to capture that full-front, high gloss National Geographic cover image or to find some rarely shown angle on a nearly 400 year old building. Others on a day tour like me walked lazily around or charged full tilt through the place trying to grab as much of the experience as possible before being called back to the organized tour bus. Being a day tripper on my own my driver-guide gave me as much time as I wanted to explore, find my own angles, use some of his suggestions and explore the more delicate features of the main building.

It's a mausoleum. A graveyard for initially only one person and a personal tribute to one of the greatest love stories of all time. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the entire complex in 1632 as a burial site for his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to a daughter, the 14th and last child of the Shah. He was later buried there himself, throwing off the symmetry he fought so hard to maintain but since their crypt is in the basement of the main building, that nitpicky little detail isn't noticed above ground and outdoors. Theirs was the love that sustained an empire; the Taj Mahal is said to be second in beauty only to hers.

Balance was the key. Of the two facing mosques only one has a completed interior and serves as a house of worship. The second was built literally and simply to balance the first. It has no other purpose. The reflecting pool allows a mirror image of the whole from the main garden. Inlaid semi-precious stonework and carved reliefs cover much of the exterior surfaces along with a few disturbingly large beehives. While Muslim tradition forbids elaborate decoration of graves it apparently says little about how grand the building above the grave can be.

For a trip to the Taj Mahal, the insurmountable distance, the high heat, sweltering humidity and shocking poverty are worth enduring for the building itself, thankfully, has endured. Security is tight and environmental controls around the complex limit its exposure to pollution which had begun to turn the pure white marble a dull yellow. I was only there for a day trip but would have enjoyed one of the night viewings offered during and around the full moon of every month. Now that would have surely made the cover of National Geographic?!

If you want a better idea of how something this wonderful is possible, view this treat on YouTube and experience "Deliverance," written and performed by Yanni across the Yamuna River with the Taj Mahal in the background in tribute to India's 50th anniversary of independence. It is a personal favorite piece of music while the magnificent setting speaks for itself.

Gotta go.

Globe Trotting Around the World

I had to go to Hong Kong on business one day and then from there on to India for an exploratory session with the new service team my company had installed at Delhi. Was I up for it, they asked? I kept telling them they didn't need to ask twice much less the first time. And I even sweetened the pot by offering to schedule a longish layover in London on the way back to do a drop-in on our offices there. I was going around the world, from Chicago to Chicago, for the first time in my life. This time the journey itself was the destination.

It would be 747s all the way as the first great bird lifted off the runway for Tokyo. Changing from there to Hong Kong we came down over southern Japan where I noticed a very large and active volcano softly belching white steam in to the atmosphere, a major city built up in every direction around it. The AirMap informed me that this was Kagoshima at the very southern tip of Kyushu Island and a "Sister City" to Miami. Mt. Sakurajima pops off with almost boring regularity, apparently, as evidenced by the densely packed villages all around the island on which it sits in the middle of the bay.

Leaving out of Hong Kong was disappointing in that the service operated in the evening with an arrival in to Delhi along the order of Midnight. Still, I hoped for a moonlit sky that might offer a unique view of Mt. Everest directly on our flight path in to the Indian capital city. No such luck. It fogged up around the mountains to the point that I was hoping the instruments would keep us well abeam the mountain and not heading directly for it. We landed safely in Delhi without further adieu.

Mosquitoes in baggage claim, mosquitoes at the check-in counter a few days later, mosquitoes in the boarding lounge and one or two brave ones actually on the plane sums up the experience at Indira Ghandi International Airport. We closed the door, the flight attendants hit the aisles with bug spray and we launched in to the night sky for London at around 3AM. The captain informed us of our flying route that would deliberately avoid Iraqi airspace, news we all accepted with relief. He went on to explain we would be flying over the heart of Iran instead.

I hoped to sleep all the way to London considering the hour of the night and the eight hours of flying time. I woke some three hours out right over downtown Tehran, noticed how brown absolutely everything was and dozed off for the hop over Turkey and across the Black Sea in to Bulgarian air space and central Europe on a beeline to London Heathrow.

Seven hours on the ground in London and back in the air again I was, now headed home for Chicago on the fifth 747 of the journey. This time there was something spectacular to capture the moment following the view of Mt. Sakurajima in southern Japan. I wish pilots would call out traffic in the area even if it is a competitor's airplane. If I hadn't been seated on the left side of my plane I would have missed this. We were bigger, higher and faster but that just made it perfect to capture the ice floes and bergs all around this magnificent moment in time.

Pan Am used to fly a Round the World Service offering the same flight number in each direction though sometimes there might have been a change of aircraft for scheduling reasons. After Pan Am folded United Airlines tried it a couple of times only to discontinue the service for the last time shortly after September 11, 2001. I was able to make the trip twice, once in each direction before it was all over.

I'd do it all over again tomorrow.

Gotta go.