We arrived in Agra in the evening of the 22nd after a long and very bumpy ride from Jaipur. On the way we visted some ancient Indian holy town now deserted in the middle of the day when it was as hot as hell so enthusiasm was minimal to put it mildly especially as we've seen so much of this sort of thing recently. We felt a bit sorry for the guide who was trying to explain the no doubt interesting history of it to a group who really couldn't give two hoots. Agra is a very poor city, even by Indian standards which has the distinction of having perhaps the worlds most famous building within it's limits. Therefore many western tourists visting this city can and will get hassled to death by the locals meaning Agra has a pretty bad reputation. Therefore we didn't really want to leave the hotel much other than to visit the Taj Mahal itself which we did very early on the morning of the 23rd to avoid the heat and the crowds. It does indeed look magnificent looking at it from any distance and it makes for some great photo's. However, surprisingly it's nothing to write home about inside with little to see. We just wandered around for an hour or so, took various photos' then escaped back to the hotel before too many sellers and beggars arrived to bug us to death. However, Jo and some of the girls from the trip did make the fatal mistake of having a look around the Agra markets in the afternoon. That should actually read tried to look around the markets but they never made it as the cycle rickshaw drivers didn't take them there and tried to make them go into other shops instead. When the girls refused the rickshaw drivers wouldn't take them anywhere else plus also told anyone else within earshot not to help them or give them directions to get back. To compund the Agra misery further Jo got pretty much groped by passing cyclists as she walked the 50 meters from the internet cafe to the hotel that evening. Get the picture about Agra? Wonderful, world famous building, utterly dreadful city. In the evening some of our tour group who were on the shorter trip got a train to Delhi where we'll meet them again on our last day in India. We and a few others plus our tour group leader got an overnight train to Varanasi. The break up of the group was quite sad as we've had a great time together which has made this tour alot of fun.