around the world in 180 days

Happy Birthday, Andrew. I hope you had a good day today. As for me, I’m a little sick. Not much, just a touch, but that’s enough and I hope it goes away soon. Delhi belly, one of our tour guides called it, which must be some kind of poetry or something, because it rhymes. Beauty, right?
Beauty is the Taj Mahal, which we visited and photographed today. You can go online and look up probably a thousand different angles of the building and not a single one will do it justice. We took about 30 photos while we were there, and, looking at them now, they’re a pale reflection of the real thing. Some things just can’t be captured in a photo and the Taj is one of them.
The Taj is made from Indian white marble, which is as white as Italian alabaster, but much harder. The stone is translucent, which is why the Taj changes color as the lighting changes. The building is covered in intricate patterns: Quranic verses in fine Arabic calligraphy, flowers, vines and geometric patterns that all look painted on. They’re not, though, but inlaid in the marble. Every different color is a different stone, and all were (and still are) mined locally, in India. The craftsmanship is absolutely unparalleled.
The secret of this technique has been passed down from generation to generation for the 350 years since the Taj was built and is still practiced today in a workshop owned by a funny old man named Krishna. After the Taj, we visited his shop and he showed us how each stone in an intricate inlay is individually sculpted on an emory wheel, tiny pieces shaped with the tips of a worker’s fingers on a wheel spun by hand. A normal sized plate with a significant amount of inlay work might take 4 months to complete, from start to finish, and they had entire tables on display, with scenes of elephants, camels and flowers of all kinds. I can’t imagine how long they must take.
Krishna was a great salesman, full of jokes and amusing comments. We bought a single tile (probably the cheapest thing in the place) for about ten bucks. Mary spent a bit more and got a small box. I’m not much for handicrafts–most stuff looks like cheap crap to me–but the pieces in this place were works of art, absolutely amazing. I told Krishna I’d be back when I made my first million and he said that it’d be best for both of us if I did so as soon as possible.
As I see all these old buildings that are relics from a once-great empire, I think about how India that has risen, fallen and is rising again. I look at the streets, crammed with cars and bicycles and people, I see the intense, crushing poverty that drives people to desperation, and I see the kindness and hospitality that the Indian people offer to strangers and I can’t help but wonder if the US will look something like this in a couple hundred years. Who knows?
Of course, there’s one major difference between the US and India: colonialism. The US isn’t likely to be colonized by another power and thus won’t have its natural resources drained away for a couple hundred years as Britain did to India. Western empires alwasy seem to get as soft landing as they crumble, while eastern empires have been taken over by the west (with the possible exception of Japan).
Ok. Enough of that. Tomorrow, we’re on our way back to Delhi. Mary will be with us for 2 more nights, before flying out Saturday morning at 7 or some other ungodly hour and then Anna and I have to decide what we are doing next. India is already insanely hot, 40 degrees in the middle of the day (about 105 for you fahrenheiters), and its getting hotter. I think we’ll be heading for the mountains. Brace yourselves: more mountain photos on the way! See if you can tell the difference!