'Marblellous' Taj Mahal

The train journey to Agra whilst not particularly comfortable was much better than we expected. Four hours passed relatively quickly as we chatted with another English couple, Alex and Toby, who had pretty much covered the same route around the world as us. Alex is an ex-travel writer for Conde Naste and Beth was green with envy for most of the train journey!

Agra itself is not very beautiful. A dusty, dirty, smelly town full of touts and beggars. The Sheela guesthouse was a retreat from the madness; set in an enclosed garden boasting hisbiscus, palms and sunflowers. The food was excellent (when is a curry ever not?) and it was our haven as we sipped chaye (sweet milky tea) and started the day with Indian muesli and curd.

At 5.45am on our first full day in Agra, we stumbled into the queue for the Taj Mahal, gradually getting more excited the more awake we became as we contemplated what we were to see: a gleaming, 400 year old white marble tomb romantically dedicated to a Moghal emperor's wife. The vision was no less romantic than the story. The first glimpse of the Taj Mahal was breath-taking; dwarfing the tourists that swarms around it, the Taj is perfectly symmetrical in design and reflected in the great run of water that lines the path to the 7th wonder of the world. We felt humbled and certainly insignificant in the presence of such beauty that seems to defy modern architecture in it's ostentatious statement of eternal love. The cool white marble is inlaid with marble of intricate floral designs and wonderfully scripted Islam verse. As the sun rose and warmed the marble, the Taj took on a golden glow repelling rays from the sparkling stone and rebounding off the semi-precious stones set into the walls.

Whilst in an exploring mode we bravely wondered into downtown Agra and walked to the Red Fort, a UNESCO world heritage site and one built entirely of red sandstone but blasted with white shell plaster to make the gigantic fort appear like marble. It actually looked better in the places where the white plaster had come off, the deep red in contrast to the neighbouring Taj Mahal visible from the fort. After a couple of hours of wondering through the maze of levels and after two photo requests by Indian men, we walked on towards the mosque. We didn't get far however as the number of touts aggressively hounding us was too much and we headed back to the haven of Sheela where we stayed drinking lassies for the rest of the evening.

It is easy to harden your heart in India. The touts (the majority) do not make it easy to recognise the genuinely kind people (the minority) when they come along (rarely). It's really hard not to lump Indian men here together as sexually repressed, uncouth and aggressive but we're trying to be open minded and certainly today we have met men who are genuinely helpful and kind. We are working to the theory that one nice man makes up for run-ins with three bad ones. It keeps us positive anyway! So a day of contrasts but nothing can usurp the Taj Mahal which lives up to the hype and, like Angkor Wat, will leave an impression with us for life.