Hotel Chandra Pushp Palace Agra

... in that dump.

We packed up and went to the station, to find the next train, which of course we couldn't book tickets on as the reservation window shuts 2 hours before the train leaves and we'd just missed that. So we decided to jump on it anyway and buy a ticket on the train. We were worried about not getting seats as the station and the platform was rammed. However, we eventually got seats and tickets and the 5 hour train ride to ...

... people generally have a better life there, they would not have to work just as hard when they got there to earn that money. But with life as it is around here, I don't blame them for wanting to go.

It was a good day up there, we had a nice dinner at sunset, and read a lot. Soon after sunset, we walked through the dispersing crowds and desperate vendors outside of the Taj, towards home. We got into such a heated debate about religion, God and science that it took us the ...

... no photography allowed inside but that didn't stop some people - oh well. We founds our guide and the 3 Aussies and then he showed us something truly lovely he placed a small torch on the inlaid stonework and turned it on and it glowed in a way that you would never have imagined. The flowers truly came alive and had a 3 dimensional effect that cannot be seen any other way. The carving inlaid stonework and decoration is stunning

Left to wander around you gaze ...

... To one side is the Shah's tomb - he was buried here later and this is the only thing in the entire place that is off centre or out of symmerty. As with other Muslim tombs, what you see are in fact dummy tombs, the actual tombs are below and are exact replicas of the ones we can see.

After sitting by the Taj for something like an hour, enjoying the changes in the light and also people watching I had a wander over to the duplicate of the mosque. Here ...

... and learn to pass through it as smoothly as possible. after a while, you
can walk the entire road and only get heckled a couple of times. i suppose its down to body language.
eventually, an auto-rickshaw driver convinced me that he was being honest, offering me a free ride to a local tourist shop so i could get a map. i suppose he thought i was new to all this, and that if i walked round with the book out for long enough someone would see fit to rip me off.
after ...

... can't stop! Once there, we removed our shoes and glided across the marble platform towards the mausoleum, admiring all the intricate stonework and perfectly symmetrical gemstone patterning. We entered and wandered around the inside, which actually seemed quite small and empty compared to outside. Inside were the cenotaphs of the mughal emperor Shah Jahan and his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, whom the mausoleum was built in memory of. The emperor is said to have ...

On the three hour long train ride from Delhi to Agra I had the pleasure of sharing a compartment with an American couple, Ethan and Jessica from Chicago. They had just flown into Delhi after island hopping in the South Pacific. A part of the world I'm very interested in traveling to myself someday. Although their comments about the outrageous costs have me doubting I'll ever actually go. It was nice to finally talk to some fellow travelers, something I assumed would happen with ...

... sun rise from the rooftop, the monkeys woke and started getting active around us. If reincarnation is possible I always wanted to be a bird of prey, I'm now leaning towards a monkey in Varanasi. We were super looking forward to the 12 hour train ride to Agra because we had booked Aircon Sleeper class! A treat, proper luxury... let down though as at the station discovered we were only on a waiting list a "Pay the full price for ...

The train ride to Agra was relatively uneventful. We managed to find seats in a car with mainly families, so the leering stares were kept to a minimum. A poor family across from us got up when a more wealthy family boarded the train. The small child of the poor family sweltered in the heat as the wealthy couple fed water to their young baby; another reminder of the lingering class divide in India. Skin colour is particularly important in India, and people with darker skin are seen to be ...

... the night bus. In fact the journey wasn't as bad as we had imagined it would be. It is true to say that we were thrown around violently for the first half of the journey through the hills (sometimes bouncing six inches off the seat as we went over a bump) but when we made it down onto the plains, sometime around midnight, it became much smoother and sleep was then possible. At two O'clock we stopped at a roadside dhaba and I sat drinking chai with a group of truck drivers. I ...