Taj Mahal

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13th December

If we thought Jodphur was an assault on our senses, we quickly realised that it was just a trial warm up for Agra. The city is famous for the Taj Mahal which is beautiful but the city is mad, mad, mad and the outskirts are filthy. Animals everywhere foraging through loads of litter and debris, dust everywhere and everything seemed brown, grim and brown. The traffic was awful with really bad bottle necks made worse as a buffalo had decided to die and they were trying to haul it out of the way. We crossed over the river with a view of the little Taj and made our way to the park where the Maharajah was going to build the black Taj, on the opposite side of the river Yamoona to the Taj Mahal where his favourite wife is buried and this gave us some lovely views of the Taj Mahal itself. She died after giving birth to her 14th child, he locked himself away for several weeks and emerged with grey hair, a much older man. He ended up being imprisoned by his own son but was allowed to be buried to the side of his wife in the Taj Mahal.

Our hotel for the night was very swanky, right in the middle of town, it really is such a contrast from the chaos outside to the serenity inside and of course the luxury and comfort inside to the poverty and sadness in the street.

Our clothes, being made in Jaipur were coming to the hotel tonight, he arrived at about 10pm, what we didn't realise was this lovely young chap who brought them had come by bus, 6 hours.... And he had to go straight back, another 6 hours.



They had made a good job of most of it but Sals trousers were too long and the jacket was too big in various places.



14th December

Our city guide arrived for the tour, we reckoned he would be a bit of an Indian Delboy but had good English and liked a joke, we asked him about the amount of men/boys we saw walking about holding hands, there were far too many for all of them to be gay, and he explained it was just friendship and was seen as perfectly ok whereas opposite sexes showing affection in public could be frowned on, he summed it up by saying in England you can kiss but not piss and in India you can piss but not kiss! Mr Harinder was interested in the clothes that had been delivered and showing him the jacket, Del boy Amit knew exactly where to go and within about an hour the jacket was refitted and trousers taken up! This is India, everything is possible!

The Taj Mahal was fabulous, crowded with people so we didn't get a Princess Diana moment but Delboy knew all the photoshots and where to take them, plus he knew his stuff. It is such a beautiful building, the marble is inlaid with carnelian,lapis lazuli, jasper, mother of pearl and various other stones and is perfectly crafted. When you go inside, you put covers on your shoes. Inside are the tombs which are in the basement, now closed to the public, so replicas have been made at ground level. It would be nice to walk around in peace and calm, but it's the opposite, people shouting, guards shouting louder and constantly blowing whistles.... Awful, dreadful atmosphere.

Every tourist attraction has loads of touts selling tut of all types, to get them off our backs we say, later, later, they always reply, ok I see you when you finish visit, my name is Raj ok, you remember me. Outside the Taj Mahal his name was Bobby so Pete had to buy something !

Next we visited the Red Fort, built by same chap as Taj Mahal, some of the carvings in the various colours sandstones was stunning.

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