14th - 16th Oct. Agra and Fatehpur Sikri

Temperature: Hot and humid, maybe 35 degrees
Wonders of the World: 1
Monkeys: Angry and scary
Staring men: Maybe a million
Pictures taken: Around 200

Travelling from McLeod to Agra meant a 10 hour bus trip to Shimla again, an overnight stop at Shimla then 2 trains to Delhi with 2 nights (to buy train ticket) in Delhi, then a 3 hour train to Agra. Lots and lots of travelling!

We chose a hotel close to the Taj Mahal, a regular backpackers haunt that means you can walk to the entrance to the Taj Mahal very easily at 5:30 in the morning.

The hotel was pretty poor in cleanliness etc. but the view from the roof top restaurant was the best of all the backpacker lodges, and they knew it! The food wasn't fantastic, although it wasn't very expensive either. Breakfast was around 1 pound for tea; cornflakes, toast and scrambled eggs.

After arriving at 8:30am we went straight to the Agra Fort by tuk tuk. Our tuk tuk guy was a little past it, and was a little bit too small for carting big Westerners around, at one stage we actually had to get out and push the cycle-rickshaw.

The Fort was lovely, bit better than the one in Delhi. There's actually a picture of it on our homepage (which we can't change!). We have lots of pictures, but can't upload them yet.

The Tuk Tuk guy waited for us then took us to lunch at a garden restaurant, then on to a gem shop to get his commision (which is a normal thing in India, Westerners cannot escape the emporiums and sales men!).

We had no intention of getting anything, only looking so the rickshaw guy could get his money, but we were very drawn to the black star semi-precious jewellery, which can only be bought in Agra. Carl succommed to a very nice silver and white gold black star ring which is a very nice souvenir/investment from India.

Well, it was a very early start in the morning as the Taj Mahal is best viewed at dawn as sun set is spoilt by the pollution in the air. We walked to the Taj entrance and waited until 6am to get in. It's quite pricey, even if it was in England, the price was 750 rupees, which is around 9 pounds, although it is one of the 7 wonders of the world. Indians only have to pay 20 rupees.

We can certainly say it's worth seeing, and lived up to, and beyond expectations. It's the most photogenic building you'll ever see. You'll notice this by the amount of photos we've taken. I hope the photos speak for themselves as we've tried to capture different angles to the standard front shot. (Not yet uploaded)

We spent 3 hours wandering around the Taj. Then we were taken to the 'baby Taj', Itimad-ud-daulah after a small Islamic Mausoleum. Unfortunately, eventhough the 'baby Taj' was magnificent (as the design is suppose to be superior to that of the Taj Mahal), it didn't compare to the Taj. It's also guarded by lots of angry monkeys that you have to watch.

It was recommended by our guide book to visit Fatehpur Sikri, which is a fortified ghost city of the Mughal period, which mainly consisted of a palace and a mosque. It was spoilt by the many many young men staring and shouting and leering, it got too much that you couldn't sit for a second without getting crowds of people around us. We left only two hours after arriving.

We spent the rest of the day waiting for our evening train to Varanasi, mostly in the restaurant of the train station. Unfortunately, again, we were centre of attention and men were just sat there staring at us. We had to get a guy who could speak good English to explain to them that it's extremely rude, which kinda worked for a while.

After a long day, we were very tired and hope to get a good sleep on the train but found we were in a carriage full of young American students. It was a late night!