taj mahal

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Picture the Taj Mahal

My apologies.
When I took the photo
I didn’t notice the dusty
bare rump of the beggar boy
squatting in the left-hand corner.

I was busy looking at the view.
The pearly light reflecting
from the white marble
at sunrise
is quite something.

Of course, there are hordes
of tourists at that time of day.
Tiny people with cameras
all gaping up at the magnificence
through their lenses.

Me, I crossed the river
to get a better picture.
Get the whole thing in.
But, don’t worry,

I’ll cut the kid.
Photoshop him out.

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Look at the birdie…

Posted in response to the DailyPost weekly photo challenge.  This week’s theme ‘Graceful’.

Early Morning Mist

Yeah, I know, I know, I’ve used this picture before, but I honestly couldn’t fine a more fitting example for this challenge.  Oh, I had lots of nice birdie and animal pictures, and more graceful arching branches than I could count.  But, this photo of the most graceful building in the world, the Taj Mahal, caught by my goodself in the (very) early morning mist (yawn…) says it all.

We all think we know about the Taj Mahal, but no photograph or tv picture in the world will ever capture it’s vastness and purity of structure and form.  It glows in the sunrise with quite breathtaking beauty and grace.

Shame the bloomin’ bird got in the way… hehee.. 😉

Only  joking. Just look at the gorgeous sweep of those wings!

 

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Perfection in symmetry

Posted as part of the Daily Post photo challenge.  This weeks prompt – Symmetry

Yeah, I know, I’ve used this picture before, but frankly, I don’t really do symmetry, so had a struggle to find a suitable picture (and no, since you ask, I couldn’t think of anything to snap on this horrible cold and rainy day), but searching through my archive, the symmetry of this birds wings set in front of the most perfectly symmetrical and beautiful building in the world seemed to be the obvious choice.

The photograph was taken in the early morning, and the heavy morning mist made the Taj Mahal seem even more magical and ethereal. Seeing it then for the first time took my breath away.

Day 3_1

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A very cakey holiday

So here I am back from my little trip.  Two weeks holiday.  Gone in the blink of an eye.

I’ve been to both India and Nepal in that time and seen some breathtakingly wonderful things.  Also some breathtakingly weird ones.

The Taj Majhal.  You know the Taj Mahal don’t you.  I did.  I knew what it looked like, what it was for.  I knew the backstory.  I’d seen Princess Diana sitting on a bench all lonely.  I’ve seen it on TV documentaries and in magazines.  I knew it.  I knew what to expect.

DSC_0128Apparently, no I didn’t.  The Taj Mahal is possibly the purest most perfect construction I have ever had the privilege to set eyes upon.  It was misty on the morning we visited. The whiteness of its marble glowed through the gloom, ghostly and ethereal. A perfectly iced cake. The size of the thing is overwhelming…yes, monumental.  Up close, the marble glistens with colours and striations unimaginable from a distance. To think that the main building was designed and built in just eight years.  Puts our cathedral builders to shame. I’ve already told Chris that I’m expecting an equally impressive memorial.  He’d better get cracking.

You emerge from the visit feeling as if you’ve been to another dimension, especially given the melee of people, animals, vehicles, etc that meet you at the exit.  Cows, pigs, monkeys and Camels amongst the motorbikes and rickshaws.

Everything in India seems to be done in the open. Haircuts, shaves, dental work, shoe mending, clothes sewing, cooking, eating and all manner of ablutions (don’t even ask) done at the side of the road for all to see.  Now, this wouldn’t suit us all.  Not me anyway, I like my privacy (and safety), but our lovely local guide assured us that

‘India is fun to live in, no health and safety rules and regulations.  You can do what you like, when and where you like.  You can drive anyhow you like.  Everybody gets on and goes about their business as they like’

Well, doesn’t sound too bad. And I witnessed an extraordinary acceptance, by most individuals, of life and living and their place in the world that we in the West just don’t have.  This may be to do with religious belief –  Hindus and Bhuddists both believe in reincarnation and that this life is just a path to the next.  I’m sure we could learn more than a little from both.

Nepal was different.  Calmer, less cows in the road.

I didn’t really know the meaning of magnificence until I saw the mountains there.  Everest from a teeny tiny DSC_0695plane.  Just sixteen of us, all with window seats, all invited to the cockpit to view the vista from the front.  The mountain range went on and on.. glistening below and beside us.  More icing.  More cake. (I must have been hungry a lot – everything looking cakey).  I now am the proud owner of a certificate to say I’ve taken the Everest flight.  Ok, not quite the same as climbing the thing, but as it says on my bought-on-the-plane-never-to-be-worn tee-shirt:

‘I didn’t climb Everest, but I touched it with my heart’

Then there was the splendorous Annapurna range with orange tips at sunrise (Jaffa cakes??) worth getting up at 4:30 for.

These are but a couple of things from my brilliant adventure.  I won’t bore you with more right now. Soon though.  Off now to find cake.