Fugitives, snoring and marble

Well it is clear that Matt would not make a very good international fugitive as chances would have it one of his old school friends that was not even aware he was in India saw him in a picture in the local paper in Dubai in an article on Indian Tourism (blows your mind how small this world is and whos watching you...)

Anyway back to our whereabouts. The last few days we have been mostly traveling on trains from Haridwar to Agra. We awoke at 5.20am to leave Haridwar feeling much better,with Matt deciding that farting was a sign of good health in India and was reason enough to celebrate.
To leave the Hotel we had to wake the man on reception who much to our amusement was caked in some kind of beauty mask.
We met our train with ease from experience by now and Matt immediately made friends with his neighbour by producing his trustee Duct tape to hold a falling tray in front of her. She was quickly keen to try and return the favour by offering some of her home made curry. Not a prospect that appealed to either of our delicate stomachs and the mere smell was enough to make us nauseous.

Our onward Train to Agra was the first upgrade to AC upper tier class (e.g. not cattle class) we had taken and was not quite the experience we had expected.
We settled in and met the other two gentlemen in our small cabin with four comfortable single beds in a nice air-conditioned carriage.
Everything was as normal and we were busy planning our trip ahead when one hr in to the trip the rather large Indian man decided it was kip time and off he went to dream land in a suped up 6 cylinder.
Just the noise alone produced by this fine specimen was like nothing we had heard. First there was the snoring, followed shortly by grunting then silence to end with a hugh snort and gargle.
The best part about snoring is when you think you have heard the best one there is a louder one just around the corner and boy could this man perform. Just to top it off this man was producing fine odours and when your attention was somehow brought back to him it was for all to see his fly drawn fully down.
This kept Matt very amused and was just about making poor Leanne sick and very grossed out by the time we pulled into Agra ( I guess money does not always make a better traveling companion!)

Agra is a extremely busy and very polluted city but what attracted us to here along with the hoards, was to take time to see the Taj Mahal and it's marbled beauty.
We were once again up at 5.30am which somehow seems to be the norm these days, so we could be at the Taj Mahal at opening and watch the sun rise. Some great tourist attractions we have seen often disappoint but this definitely did not. This was built as a memorial by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631-53 for his wife who died giving birth to their 14th child (how romantic but maybe she deserved this after 14 children!)
As we watched the sun rise, the white silhouette of the Taj gradually took on an amazing shimmer that is perfectly reflected in the fountain ponds which were not turned on at the time. A truly amazing slight and worthy of the hype it has held for so many centuries.
The Taj is made from white marble and embossed with semi precious stone and was designed to be perfectly symmetrical in everyway, except for the placement of the two tombs inside. Given its age it is amazing how perfect and new this masterpiece has remained.
The only fear is from the discolouring and eroding effect of pollution. In a truly grand scheme the Govt has decided to ban all traffic from within 500m of the Taj Mahal (if only pollution was so easily contained)
Having had time from our Death beds and on train trips to plan ahead we have booked and paid for all our remaining train journeys to Mumbai. Tonight the shortest of our four trips will be to Jaipur which is more of a connection point for us but we hope to find something there of interest as we will be there till tomorrow night.

---

---