Our Second Vacation - Fatehpur Sikri

After a quick two hour train ride from the New Delhi railway station, we found ourselves in Agra. This city is most famous for the Taj Mahal, but we decided to hold that off until the next day. First, we went to Fatehpur Sikri which is about an hour from Agra. This is another Mughal city, that we had been to during the first semester of the school year. We wanted Beth to be able to see it, so we went back again. It is a beautiful place with lots of very interesting architecture.

There is also a mosque near the city that we went to visit.

One of the most interesting features of the mosque were the giant beehives attached to the ceiling. This was in an alcove above the door into the prayer hall.

From Fatehpur Sikri we went to Akbar's tomb. This was another place that we visited on our last trip to Agra, but we wanted Beth to be able to see that, as well. Below you can see a slight reversal of roles. Ordinarily, Beth Ellen would provide the commentary and guidebook information while Beth Ann would snap pictures of...well...everything. Here Dave caught a picture of them doing the opposite outside of Akbar's beautifully decorated tomb.

Inside, the tomb was ornately decorated. Akbar designed it himself before he died, so he was able to make sure that everything was top of the line.

The grounds of the tomb were filled with animals. There were blackbuck deer grazing on the lawns and purple sunbirds in the bushes.

There was also a grey langur monkey sitting on the terrace near the tomb. Beth and Beth decided to get their picture taken with it. If you look closely at the photograph below, you'll see that Beth Ellen has her mouth firmly shut while Beth Ann has a nice toothy grin showing. Apparently we forgot to inform Beth that monkeys see bared teeth as a sign of aggression. Luckily, the mother monkey was not too threatened by these two and she walked away uneventfully to nurse somewhere else.

It was another full day of sightseeing in India. We were looking forward to visiting the beautiful Taj Mahal early the next morning to see the sun rise over the white marble dome.

Dave and Beth