---

It was 5.30am and the streets of Paraganj were quiet with none of the bustle of the night before when we´d run the gauntlet passed shop owners trying their best to entice us in or indeed the previous morning when we´d been overtaken by rickshaws packed full of 8year olds, immaculately turned out in their school uniforms and waving furiously. Instead we hurried along deserted streets heading for New Delhi Railway Station and the poshest train I would get in India - the Shatabdi Express. With seats as good as on any train back home, air conditioning (the real thing not the window open variety) and men in uniform serving us up flasks of tea and breakfast, it left on time and the countryside to Agra all passed in a bit of a blur.

We had three whirlwind days in Agra, starting almost the moment we arrived when the rickshaw driver who picked us up from the station convinced us to hire him for the rest of the day. We ended up on a random tour of tourist spots we would have seen anyway and watching local life that we wouldn´t. Dobi whallahs down by the waterfront who seemed to effortlessly swing soaked washing over their heads and wallop it down on smooth rocks in front of them, the products of their earlier labours laid out and drying on the grass nearby. Cycle rickshaw drivers snoozing quietly in the passengers seat during a quiet spell, camels slowly pulling carts along the middle of the road, blocking the way of irate autorickshaw drivers who took every opportunity to toot their horns as they swerved in and out of gaps that disappeared almost as soon as they opened. The Red Fort with its immense red walls and circular bastions rising seventy feet high, the redness interrupted only by the white marble of the balcony from where the deposed Emperor Shah Jahan, imprisoned for the last 7 years of his life by his son Aurangzeb, looked out across the river to the Taj Mahal, the tomb he´d built in honour of his late wife. Sunset found us down by the banks of the Yamuna river, watching light fade over the Taj with colourful kites flying high overhead, their strings tugged by a group of men and boys standing behind us, their eyes glued to the sky as they practised for an upcoming competition.

We´d decided to spend Xmas day at the Taj Mahal and got up early to be there in time for sunrise, or so we thought until we arrived to find ourselves 20th in the queue.... the women's queue that is. Men pretty much just walked straight in - with two entrances to choose from they never waited more than a few minutes before passing through security. Not that it did them much good - on the other side of the security area the huddle of orphan husbands and boyfriends quickly grew as they waited for partners to make it through the single entrance for women. The queues were the result of the security guards insisting on searching every handbag, rucksack etc that was taken in and as most women carried a bag of some description it made for a long wait. Now I´ve nothing against tight security but the complete lack of organisation combined with the randomness of what was or wasn´t allowed just made the whole thing completely farcical. Having reached the front of the queue whether you were then allowed in or sent off to deposit banned items in the left bag office seemed to depend on the mood of the security guard, which way the wind was blowing, whether you were wearing red, something to do with odd numbers.... etc etc. We had plenty of time to look for a list of banned items whilst we waited but we couldn´t see one anywhere on display - from what we worked out though it seemed to go something like this:

 •  Food isn´t allowed - we chuckled lots an hour later as we sneakily tucked into contraband biscuits I discovered in the bottom of my bag
 •  Guide books are allowed, other reading books and note books aren´t, unless of course they are smaller than some arbitrary and variable size in which case they might be allowed. Maybe.
 •  Pens aren´t allowed, unless the guard can´t be bothered arguing in which case they are
 •  And fluffy kangaroo key rings are most definitely BANNED - little Joey got banished into purgatory along with my book.

Still seething we just about made it inside in time for sunrise, which then turned out to be a complete non event - with the sky hazy the soft pink light effects and shadows we´d expected just never happened. The major benefit of going early ended up being the relative lack of people - don´t get me wrong, it was still busy, just not with the zillion people that had arrived by the time we left a few hours later!
.
Finished in 1648 the Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. It sits surrounded by 4 minarets which were designed to lean outwards slightly so that in the event of an earthquake they´d fall away from the tomb not onto it. It is impressive from the outside - all white marble, the main building topped by a huge onion dome and surrounded by lush green gardens with reflective pools, trees and fountains - but like Uluru, the Eiffel Tower and some other places I´ve been to where I´ve seen the place a zillion times in pictures before I went I wasn´t particularly overwhelmed. What I wasn´t expecting though was the inside which was fantastic - an inner chamber with an octagonal marble screen, called a jali, decorated with precious and semiprecious gemstones which surrounded the cenotaphs of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan. Muslim tradition forbids elaborate decoration of graves so their bodies actually lie below in a relatively plain crypt. The acoustics of the chamber were amazing and the intense colour of the gemstone inlay, laid out in floral designs, under torch light in an otherwise dim chamber was stunning.

Perhaps more stunning for me than the Taj was the tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula's, aka the Baby Taj. Built between 1622 and 1628 using white marble from Rajasthan it sits on the banks of the Yamuna river. It´s walls incorporate intricate jali screens that allow light to filter into its inner chambers and are encrusted with semi-precious stones like jasper, lapis lazuli, onyx, and topaz in images of trees, fruit and flowers.

The best part of our stay in Agra though was the day we took a local bus out to Fatehpur Sikri, about an hour out of the city. The complex there was built by the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the 16th Century. Lacking a male heir Akbar made a pilgrimage to the Sufi Saint Salim Chisti who lived nearby - when he was later blessed with not one but two sons he moved his capital here, albeit only for @10years. We followed the other tourists up the steep steps of the Jama Masjid, to the top where there were great views out across the few streets of the town to the fields beyond, passed locals who sat eating and chatting and dodging blokes who tried to convince us that we absolutely must have their services as a guide... for a fee. Despite our best efforts we soon picked up a guide, a young Nepalese guy who told us he was being paid by the Imam to show tourists round and that he wouldn´t ask us for any money. And to be fair he didn´t but after an interesting tour he took us to his friends/brothers/cousins souvenir stall who showed us his wares and swore he was offering us a ´good price´- as we looked at a few of his carvings an Indian woman stopped to ask what price he was asking... the look of sheer disbelief on her face when we told her just about said it all!!! It was getting late so we took that as a sign to leave and hurried on into the other buildings - built of red sandstone there were elaborately carved palaces and formal courtyards surrounded by reflecting pools and stunning views over the surrounding countryside. We left in what we hoped was enough time to catch the last bus back to Agra,... but as we stood in the deserted scrap of land that seemed to double as the bus station with no sign of a bus anywhere to be seen we decided to walk out to the main highway some 2km away and flag down a passing bus instead. We stopped at almost every food stall along the way, trying all sorts of stuff that we hadn´t eaten before and which was so much cheaper than in the tourist savvy areas of Agra and Delhi, gawked at peacocks parading on roof tops, wondered quite how one had managed to get up a tree and wished that we had more time to explore the outlying ruins hidden amongst the undergrowth.

Next up the pink city, Jaipur.

---