Agra - Home of the Taj Mahal

We made a quick overnight stop to Agra to visit the most famous building in India, the Taj Mahal. On the way we also visited an interesting deserted city called Fatehpur Sikri. It was created when one of the ancient Mughals tried to relocate everyone in Delhi! It didn't really work however and after a few years and issues with drainage...the inhabitants and the Emperor moved back to Delhi. However, he had built an extremely impressive site. A small palace building for each of his wives, a court for the public and a large mosque - all which remains as a shell but in pretty good condition.



The town Agra itself was a a bit of a dive. One of the places to stay listed in Lonely Planet was the Kamal Hotel so thought it must be a sign eh Dad Toutounji? (mind you the fact that they charge 2 pounds a night also helped). The Lonely Planet also helped out agin with dinner at Joney's restaurant...a small shack with 4 tables that cooked us some amazing food...so good we went back for breakfast! (Thanks Joney!)

That night's sleep was virtually non-existent. At 2am what seemed like a live band playing outside our window carried on till 5.30 in the morning!!! Not good preparation for our earliest start yet to try and avoid the busloads of tourists visiting the Taj. We got there for 7am (still think its amazing that we used to actually have to get up and work in the mornings and that some days I'd be in the gym earlier than this!).

After we paid the entrance fee (thats 750 rupees for foreigners and 50 rupees for Indians) it was of course breathtaking, there was a white mist around it that (together with calls to prayer from the nearby mosque) lent a really mystical kind of quality to the building. To really understand how great this place is you have to see it for yourself...words and photographs still don't seem to do it justice!