Seeing The Taj Mahal

I look through the shimmering heat at the colossal building before me. It took 20,000 workers laboring over a period of twenty years to complete the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan, ruler of the Mughal empire, built the Taj Mahal as a burial place for his wife in the 1600's.  The entire building is made out of expensive, white marble. The semi-precious and precious gems that decorate the Taj Mahal come from all over the world: China, different parts of Asia, even Austria! The gardens surrounding the tomb are almost as amazing as the building itself. I look longingly at the fountains and pools of water in the garden, wishing I could saturate myself and get rid of some of the heat that surrounds me. It's so hot that I feel dizzy, I have only felt this kind of heat maybe once or twice or twice before, and I feel a few degrees away from a heat stroke. An hour or so ago, we had stopped at a cafe and ordered the strawberry lemonade from the menu. We were all disgusted with it, it was salty! My dad told the staff, but told they him it was supposed to be like that. I am starting to think Indians who live in this clime might need the extra salt, I know that I am sweating A LOT right now. After showing us around the garden, our Indian guide leads us to the building itself. Since the Indians consider the Taj a holy place (it has a Mosque next to it, plus it is a tomb) we have to either put something like a bag over our shoes, or go barefoot before we can enter it, because Indians consider shoes unclean. Honestly, they have a good reason for it too: feces from human and animals litter the streets, along with dead dogs, rotten food, and a bunch of other nasty stuff I won't mention. The Taj sits on what you might call a tall platform, and we have to climb a staircase to get to the top of this.  On top of the platform, we walk underneath the immense arch of the Taj Mahal, and enter the building. We walk across a grate with a staircase underneath, which the guide informs us is the stairs to the actual resting place of Shah Jahan and his bride. A replication of the couples resting place is on the floor open to tourists, so we get to see what the ornately decorated caskets look like. As we leave the the glorious building, I pitty the peasants who had to build something so colossal, but I am glad I got to see their work of art.

The Taj Mahal viewed from across the river.

Me and my siblings in Agra fort, the Taj Mahal is visible behind us.