5 November 2004
Taj Mahal purposely being tilted
Eiffel Tower may be next landmark to be skewed
AGRA, INDIA -- Huge crowds were already expected to jam the grounds of
the Taj Mahal in celebration of the lavish building’s 350th birthday.
Now, with a report from India’s Uttar Pradesh state government that the monument may be sinking, officials expect those crowds to swell
by tens of thousands.
Tour
operators around the world have been swamped with requests for passage
to Agra. India Airlines is adding more planes and more flights as the
airline strains to keep up with demand.
This is, of course, good news for the region, which expects the revenues
of local businesses to double in the next year. T-shirt manufacturers
and souvenir suppliers in nearby Asian countries are working around the
clock to fill orders placed by vendors near the majestic edifice.
But the good times may not last. Rumors are circulating that workers have been secretly tunneling under the
monument to purposely give it a slight tilt. And there may be something
to those rumors. Travel Fox has learned that in April 2001, Indian
government officials met with Italian engineers in Pisa where they were told that the famous tower in that town could easily be straightened
within a month. However local government officials, under pressure from
businesses in Pisa, have refused to issue permits to do the work for fear
of losing tourist trade. A study commissioned by the Pisa Regional
Planning District found that if that town's landmark is brought upright,
tourism would fall by over 90 percent.
 In a related story, it was revealed that representatives from the Office
of French Tourism were present at the meeting in Pisa and have now proposed to move
the Eiffel Tower 4 degrees off kilter to make it a more "imposing"
feature in the city and to give tourists who have not visited the city's
landmark for years a reason to return.
When contacted by Travel Fox, French officials would neither confirm nor
deny these reports but did note that the government would be undertaking
an effort to beef up the easternmost leg of the tower.
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© 2004 Applied Psychology
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