Agra - Saturday 23rd February 2008

Up at pretty much the crack of dawn to go onto the rooftop of my little hotel to see the Taj Mahal. A Fantastic view of the place and cant believe that my little hotel is so close.

This is because just outside the Taj walls wasthe emcampment wherethe 20,000 workers lived whilst they were buidling the placeand now its an area called Taj Ganj....little streets and loads of histle and bustle.

At 8am I was queing up to go inside andone of the first to arrive. The place is everything you thinkit is in the pictures. Absolutely stunning that the indians can, hundreds of years ago, build this fabulous place at yet at the year 2008, most of them still live in abject poverty. What a contrast!

By 10am the place was getting mobbed with day tourists from Dehli and also the rich people from the big hotels. I made my exit and met up wiht my taxi man from last night who I agree a price to show me around the sites of Agra today and then on Sunday to go to the ghost city.

So off we went to the Agra Fort..the place often missed ornotspoken about, but is the largest and best presevred fort in India. Fantastic place and great viewsof the Taj Manal from the ramparts. Then off to see the "Mini Taj" and then finally across the river to see the Taj Mahal at a distance as the sun was going down. A fantastic day overall.

The traffic was mad...the polution extreme, I even have a really sore throat and think this is soley due to breathing in the polluted air in Agra.

The car broke down during ourtravels and so we changed onto a motorbike whilstthe car was fixed. In the afternoon we rode back to the garage area, whihc basically was a mud road with some huts and bits of car parts all over the place and dust everywhere. The mechanics seemed aged between12 and 16 and were covered head to toe in dried engine oil. I guessed they never washed it off. But they knew there stuff, changed the alternator in a flash and we were off running again.

For the evening I went out to eat in the smallest cafe I have ever seen and had a local speciality, although cant remember for the life of me what it was called. It was really tasty especially washed down with a kingfisher beer.

Back to the hotel around 11pm after being on the web, updating my blog and of course seeing Plymouth won again for the forth time in a row!

Bye for now.

Steve