Not exactly an auspicious start when the car comes to collect you is too small, is it? It was quite funny really. We were steadily loading up the car with bags etc, when someone counted the seats and established that there were only six, plus the driver (for anyone who hasn't been eagerly counting, there are seven of us, including Raj). Even Raj couldn't magically turn the car into an 8-seater, although I'm sure he did his best, and we settled for turning it into a 7-passanger vehicle by 'asking' Pippa to sit on the floor between Paul and myself.Too small or otherwise, the car did manage to deliver us to the 'Ghost City' of the Emperor Akbar, Fatephur Sikri. It's a mix of Hindu, Muslim and a smattering of other religious designs intended to give a secular atmosphere.In the Royal Complex we came first to the Khwabgah, the Emperor's private sleeping quarters, whose primary feature is an absolutely enormous stone bed fully two meters off the ground and several meters large in either direction. The emperor was clearly also a fan of games - he and his queen used concubines as pieces in a chess-like game on the Pachisi Court. He was also a fan of elephants - he used them for executions and built a tower to commemorate his favourite. A short distance form the Royal Complex is the Jama Masjid.Onward to Agra. Clearly this was to be a very busy sight-seeing-filled day, as we wasted no time getting into the exceedingly long line to get into the Taj Mahal (which took 20,000 workers a mere 22 years to build at a cost of 41 million rupees; it was built in honour of Shah Jahan's wife, who died giving birth to their 14th child and was almost torn down and sold off as masonry supplies by a rather dense British governor before his successor stepped in). As to the Taj on the day... it was pretty foggy and packed with people, albeit still impressive. The mausoleum was even more stuffed with people, which is odd because you can hardly see anything so everyone has to use flash photography (much to the consternation of the staff) just to be able to see what they came to see!Our second and last day in Agra began by heading up to the Red Fort, famous for being the place in which Emperor Aurangzeb imprisoned his father, Shah Jahan, for 8 years on the basis that Jahan's ego was getting a little out of control and through this a little expensive (he wanted to build a second Taj, out of black marble). The other Intrepid group nicked our guide, so we had to find another. There's a pretty impressive throne in the Fort overlooking a private market where the high and mighty would do their shopping and, occasionally, the emperor would pick a new wife from among the shopkeepers.