From Bharatpur, we squeezed our curry bloated and Delhi-belly wearied selves into a small jeep, and a corsa like small car - relative comfort for India, but still requiring concertina-like leg bending skills and much breathing in, to fit our group of eight, guide, trainee guide, two drivers and the luggage of ten tigers into transport designed by the manufacturers to fit eight in comfort.

On the way to Agra, we stopped to visit the deserted city of Fatepur Sikri, a huge fort that went on forever, which took many people 20 years to build. However, due to an oversight with the water supply, [Maybe they should have checked that one out a bit earlier - Dave] it was abandoned after just four years. While the king was in residence, he had plenty of fun playing regular human chess on a giant board in the courtyard, with the ladies of the city dressed in see-thought outfits as pieces on the board... we girls politely declined taking part in a reinactment.

Squished back in the cars, we headed for Agra, home of the much photographed Taj Mahal - again, our hotel was very plush... or at least the lobby was; the bathrooms needed a bit of elbow grease, but we were too excited about our trip to the Taj to care. We had lunch in the revolving (!) rooftop restaurant (resplendent in grubby shagpile carpet), during which our guide hastily whispered that we should avoid the meat here - not too much of a problem for me and Dave, as we'd been mostly vegetarian since our upset stomachs in Bikaner - so after a noodle and spring roll lunch we headed out to the Taj.

Our entrance fee to the Taj had already been paid as part of the tour price, which we were glad of as it was extortionate compared to the price for locals - although they did throw in a bottle of water and some shoe covers. For a place that receives 10,000 visitors a day, it wasn't too hectic as it had only reopened half an hour or so previously after being closed down for the afternoon to accommodate a private visit from the Hungarian Prime Minister.

Whilst I don't tend to get too emotional about these things, I really did actually feel myself gasp when we walked through the entrance arch, which was in itself a pretty impressive sight. After only having seen the Taj (usually deserted) in photos, the real thing is truly beautiful. I got a bit frustrated at the many Americans who appeared to spend their whole visit with camcorders glued to their eyes - what an experience to miss out on feeling first hand, just so they could tick the 'filmed it as I was walking in' box. Each to their own.

What beauty the Taj held on it's outside was not matched on the inside. Whilst it was still amazing to look at, it was packed - the guards inside had whistles which they were constantly (and ineffectually) blowing, creating shill echoes on top of the loud chatter, shouting, pushing, shoving and general stink of hundreds of people squished together... this is a memorial! [Apparently not many people could read the (multi lingual) no photography sign either - Dave]

We took a sharp exit, and went to sit on the left hand side about 100m away from the Taj on some steps. Dave wandered off to take some pictures and have another look around, whilst I sat with some others from our tour group and took it all in for an hour or so. After several requests for me and others from the tour to pose in various random Indian tourists' family photos (getting used to this now), we were approached by a group of about seven teenage lads from the south of India. They had travelled up on a sleeper train to visit the Taj for a day, and would be returning home that evening. They were quite shy, but there was one of them who was bolder than the rest and had a bit of a swagger, although he needed a hand from the others who were feeding him bits of english to try out on us, after persuading us to try out our Hindi on them. Once he'd asked me my name, where I was from, how I liked India, and if I was married (by this point we've twigged on that the answer to this is always yes), his friends went back into conference... they asked whether Lucy and Claire, two girls from our group were married. They both vehemently nodded, at which point the old lady who had been quietly munching a few feet away almost spat out her samosa with laughter... they were sweet in the end, and very earnest, and persuaded me to write my first name on their bus ticket, before pottering off merrily, although what they'll do with 'Jemma' written on a tatty bus ticket I'll never know.

Behind the steps was a mosque, and when Dave and I went in to have a look around, a chap kept following us and pointing out 'exciting' photo opportunities. We ignored him at first, but he wouldn't go away, so we got a few pictures in under his direction and paid up a reluctant few rupees when he stood there a little bit too expectantly after we'd finished. Five minutes later I experienced what was potentially a karmic response to our low tipping - a bird pooed on my head. [I never laughed, honest... - Dave] Cleaning myself up the best I could with my shoe covers, I was assured universally that far from being bad news and very smelly too, it was considered extremely good luck. Hm.

We headed back for an early night before a trip to the fort at Agra the following day, although unfortunately due to a slight overdose of forts, palaces and havelis over the last three weeks, whilst we enjoyed it and had a great guide (who we tipped heavily - no more poo please), it's a bit of a blur.

Time for our tour to end, we had a last night celebratory meal and a few drinks in the hotel bar, where all of the males were mostly transfixed by the cricket, and said our goodbyes, as most of us would be heading our seperate ways after the train back to Delhi.