Hotel Delux Plaza Agra

... Taj we went to its predecessor nick-named the Baby Taj. It didn’t have nearly the scale, but it had amazingly intricate carved marble screens and gorgeous inlay. After that, we went to Mehtab Bagh, a garden across the river from the Taj. We had some snacks and the kids ran around. Not sure if they even noticed the gorgeous sunset and changing colors on the Taj.

We didn’t quite have a traditional Thanksgiving Day feast, but the ...

... land stretching into the distance. One thing that we noticed is that the land is completely flight in this part of india with not a hill in sight. Another thing we noticed is that people just wandered up and down the railway tracks right next to speeding tains!
On arriving at Agra station we immediately joined the rucus for a Taxi to go to the area we wanted to stay near to the Taj Mahal called Taj Ganj. It was here that we made a new friend. We met Andy - a retired ...

... charbagh (gardens before the Taj) and approaching the monument increases your appreciation of it the closer you get, noticing more and more details and starting to get a feel for the immense size.
Enough said, if you heading to India this should be top of your list to see.
Spent a couple of hours there before heading to the Agra fort. Took a couple of pictures from the outside but wasn't interested enough to go inside.
After a lot of wondering ...

... in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur and my backpack was bursting at the seams! It had been so easy to send a package home from Malaysia that I started my morning errand quite optimistic. I was soon to learn that NOTHING is so easy in India! The hotel staff assured me that I could buy a box at the post office for my parcel - I now know that people just don't like to say "no" or "it isn't possible" here! I hired a rickshaw and headed ...

... of daylight at the Taj. It was amazing, even though the light was pretty poor as you'll see from the photos- it looks like I'm superimposed on some of them, like i've done a very bad photoshop attempt! It really is an incredible place, to be there in person is indescribable really & I can't think of any words to do it justice.

Spent that evening just hanging out at a rooftop restaurant & making friends with people from ...

... advanced physics at only 13 years old.

Nothing else to report really - we visited the local Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque (?)) yesterday - and to be honest, it wasn't a pleasant experience and we were harrassed somewhat by the local kiddies and (worse) some teens... But the whole town is in festival mode as it is the Rama (god) festival for Hindus and end of Ramadan (tomorrow) for Muslims so all the kids are very exctied ...

... in about four acres of well-kept gardens, divided in perfect symmetry by waterways, presumably for irrigation.
we wandered round until the sun started to sink in the sky, and i suddenly realised i hadn't booked our train tickets to agra for the following day.
panicking a little, we walked to the nearest train station. if you didn't book your tickets soon enough, the train sold out, and you'd b left with two options: wait another day for the next train, or travel in the ...

... bus station. The bus back took even longer because of a few more stops and a rest stop that lasted for about a half hour, but we still got back to Dr. Bandhu's early in the afternoon and then just layed around for the rest of the day. Agra was a great place to visit, and I am glad I decided to make it my first weekend trip during my time here.

photos are posted here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 263944&id=10613075&l=7c1e1533b7

... it is hot, drain your energy, fray your temper, make you want to stay naked in your room hot! But we were mentally prepared and are pushing on. After the fort we visited the Taj Mahal (Just in case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal) and after wandering around some I videoed 20 minutes of the sun disappearing behind the spectacular building. So we have explored Agra as much as we want to... happy to have seen some ...

... semi-precious stones certainly give weight to this title.

We wandered around the entire perimeter of the grounds, admiring the Taj from all angles, and gazed in awe at the huge echoing chamber inside, imagining what it might be like were it not filled with tour groups and their guides demonstrating the acoustics by shouting random syllables at the roof.

We admired the buildings on either side of the Taj, one of which was a grand mosque, and the other an identical building ...