The taj is mahal

---

yes yes yes, mahal in Indonesian means expensive and its oh so true! we left Khajuraho on a bus in the rain - an 11.5 hour bus journey on uncomfortable seats with leaky windows (you get the picture Im sure) and with a bag of ducks. Yes it's true, we shared our biscuits and headphones with a young man who had a moving sack, from which, duck heads would pop out of holes for a sneaky peak before being popped back in again by their minder, and having water poured on their heads to cool them down. Even the other passengers thought it was entertaining so it must have been more unusual than the baskets of chickens I've previously seen which cause no batted eyelids at all.
We were almost there, half an hour away in fact when we read in our guidebook that the taj mahal costs 38 times more for foreigners than for native Indians. Had it not been for the fact that no more buses were due out of the station after ours got in, we would have arrived in Agra and promptly left out of principle!
But, we've been here for a couple of days now, checking out other things - you can see the taj mahal from many places, and we've chatted to people about how worth it it is and keep changing our minds. But I think we've pretty much come to a conclusion - while the rain continued, it didnt seem quite worth the price. From what we can gather, the main selling point is the postcard view which takes your breath away - but of course with so many photos available, there really needs to be a decent sky so while it was overcast, we thought no, maybe another time. However, the skies have cleared, our house has been rented out, the sun set looked pretty lovely tonight and you know what else, it's bloomin well valentines day tomorrow. I stared at the temple from a rooftop today and imagined what it would have looked like before all the guesthouses appeared, and my god, it must have been amazing. If we wake up with no rain tomorrow, we're going to block out all the millions of other romantics and eager beevers, ignore all the touts and souveneir sellers, forget that for us both to enter it will cost the equivolent of 2 full days budget, or 2 weeks accommodation in Varanasi, and we're going to go and see what all the fuss is about - the most famous monument to love in the world, and we had no idea we'd accidently landed here for valentines day! so here's hoping there's no rain just for tomorrow...

---

Photos

this is me...
yes, been there done that, only we havent yet - we got a boat across the river round the back, braved the water buffalo and scary groups of kids saying 'halo schoolpen, shampoo, chocolate, coffee' and bob took this lovely shot