SO relieved to finally leave Delhi! Feels like we've been smoking 40 a day!
The trip to Agra took 3 hours after spending 5 hours booking tickets on the worlds most bureaucratic system ever, it required photocopies of our passports, visas etc. the locals were surprised we'd even managed it with our foreign credit card. Now we have our account, we're all set for the rest of India.
The area around The Taj Mahal was so different from what we'd imagined, a primitive little market village, no grand hotels or tacky touristy shops. We stayed just a stones throw from the gate.
The Taj Mahal was absolutely incredible, so bright white and majestic. The journey through various entrance gates before actually seeing The Taj made the experience even more mesmerising. (Klas note - All the simple architectural tools; journey, threshold, compression & release, moving the visitor on and carried out with perfection down to the last detail - incredible). We spent a good few hours soaking up the atmosphere and taking photos of the beautiful women and colourful sari's. I had wanted to visit the Taj for years and it was even more beautiful than I'd expected.
Booking a train back to Delhi from Agra wasn't so straight forward, all the trains were fully booked. Because we were taking an early morning flight we made the decision to go by cab. Everything is super cheap here so a 5 hour car trip was going to cost us around 30 pounds. (The other day at the market Klas handed over the equivalent of a fiver and 6 guys gathered round the check the note was for real! Crazy!).
Our 5 hour journey ended up being 10! Bad roads and horrible traffic getting back into Delhi. Our driver was very quiet and timid but a good driver (always a bonus!)..although he nearly got himself killed en route - he swirved the car over onto the hard shoulder of the motorway and jumped out the door onto the carrigaeway shouting and pointing to a lizard who'd innocently appeared on the dash. The driver ran off into the fields and came back with a small boy who had a big stick. As they attempted the flick the lizard out of the car, it landed on the drivers shoe and he madly dashed out AGAIN into the carriageway! This little bit of entertainment made the 10 hour trip just that little bit more bearable!
Not impressed being back in Delhi..even for 1 night, but we're off to the Himalayas tomorrow!
(Hoping to uploads some pic soon if it works!)
