The Most Beautiful Building in the World

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Agra turns out to be a real dump of a place but the hassle was not as bad as people had said and was easily coped with. We arrived at our hotel by 4.00pm and as usual it was good to find that they were expecting us.

We had booked for two nights giving us a leisurely day seeing the Taj Mahal. “What are your plans in Agra” asked the pleasant receptionist. “Tomorrow we go to see the Taj Mahal”, we answered proudly. “Tomorrow is Friday, the Taj Mahal is closed”. Total shock! We had not taken this into account with our travel plans. It was explained though that we could go now, at this moment, as it was 15 minutes away and it did not close until 7.00pm. In 5 minutes we had checked in, put our things in the room and were in a tuk tuk on our way.

Again, with less hassle than we had been warned, we were inside the grounds and what a sight to see. We were stunned at the sight of the most beautiful building we had ever seen.

There is a long queue to enter the mausoleum, shoes must be removed or covered and there are strict rules on no mobile phones or photography. Inside guards constantly tell people not to take photos which, being Indian, they take no notice of. Inside, though, is just a side show; the delight is from the outside. As the sun went down and people were leaving, we were back looking at it from a distance, we even managed to sit on the Princess Diana bench (normally the preserve of the professional photographers) and take each other’s photos. We only left at about 6.00pm when it was by now dark.

There was nothing for us to do the next day and although some may say we could have visited the Fort or the Little Taj, we were already weary of Agra.

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Comments

[chris]

Mot beautiful building in the world.
Fantastic...what did you do the next day then?

[Michelle and Terry]

Nothing, we just had to recover.