Delhi: Humayun Tomb

After dropping Little P to the airport for her domestic flight back to Mumbai before connecting to the international leg, I had the day to spare as my outbound flight was not till night time. Due to the lack of time in Delhi, I figured I would only have enough time for two sights. Initially I wanted to see Red Fort but it was a little further away, so I abandoned that thought and decided one of the two places I wanted to see was Humayun's Tomb.

The first tomb as I entered the compound was Isa Khan Tomb Enclosure. This tomb is an octagonal tomb, pre-dating Humayun's Tomb by 20 years. There is a three bay wide mosque in red sandstone.

As you can see from the above picture, the tomb was surrounded by two walls, a smaller and lower one nearer to the actual tomb, and another one higher. There were steps if you want to walk around it, which I did, that was where the two pictures were taken.

Once you moved out of this tomb area and continued to walk on the main path, you would come to the the main entrance of the Tomb-Garden of Emperor Humayun which is the West Gate. This West Gateway stood at 16 metres high.

Humayun is the second Mughal Emperor of India. His tomb, yes, named Humayun's Tomb (nothing fancy) was built by his widow, Hamida Banu Begam or Haji Begam 14 years after his death. The construction cost of this tomb was 1.5M rupees.

Humayun's Tomb-Garden is described as an example of a char bagh. In Persian, 'char bagh' means four gardens with four streams). It is also said that Humayun Tomb inspired the architecture of the world famous tomb, Taj Mahal about a hundred years later.

The tomb stands in the centre of a square garden. There's a shallow water-channel right smack in the centre too.

The Tomb Chamber showed of a plain white marble sarcophagus stands on a simple black and white marble platform. The grave itself lies in the rather dark, bat-filled basement below.

Throughout the building, one can see fine trellis work in stone.

Not far from Humayun's Tomb lies the Barber's Tomb. The compound is said to include the tomb of Humayun's favourite barber! Though the information slate stated as, "Folklore refers the building as the 'Barber's Tomb'". Somehow, it feels like it is a folklore, instead of really Humayun's favourite barber...

See the couple at the side of the steps? The girl was crying while talking to the man when I was visiting, I did feel like I was intruding but then again, this place must be really therapeutic if someone paid an entrance fee to sit down when feeling teary... mmm...

Also has beautiful trellis work

My last stop before exiting Humayun's Tomb compound was Afasrwala Tomb & Mosque. It is said that both this building dated from the Mughal period, and likewise the rest of the tomb, covered with red sandstone.

Side note: Got to curb the snacking after dinner habit!!!