Agra - India's finest, the Taj Mahal

Our first Indian train journey complete, (& remarkably pain free) we arrive in the even hotter than Delhi city of Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort & getting the hell out of there as soon as possible. We found a nice enough hotel, the Maya Hotel, 10 mins walk from the East Gate of the Taj Mahal and a couple of kms from Agra Fort. Our onward train was booked for 5pm the following night, so the plan was head to Agra Fort late afternoon for sunset on day one then head to the Taj Mahal at 6am for sunrise the next.

Thankfully our hotel had an immaculately clean kitchen and served great food, if slightly overpriced (£1.20 for a whole meal instead of 80p....), but we figured it was worth the additional cost to hopefully avoid any stomach problems, and we made this our place of choice for all our meals while here.

Considering the Taj Mahal is India’s most iconic tourist attraction for both foreign and domestic tourists, it is a shame that the city itself is still so impoverished, and as such presents no reasons for people to stay any longer than a maximum of one night, many people choosing to day trip, so the local economy realises limited benefit from living on the doorstep of the countries number one attraction. Some government money spent on making the place a little more appealing outside of just the two sites would be money well spent on helping give a significant leg up to the local people, the majority of whom appear to live in dirty streets, with stagnant overflowing open sewers running past their front doors.

We take what is possibly the most beaten up rickshaw we have seen, the few km’s up the road to the Agra Fort, an elaborate castle, palace, mosque, prison structure, built from red sandstone and marble in the 1500's. It famously acted as a prison for the king who had built the Taj Mahal when he was overthrown and imprisoned by his son. He remained there for 8 years until he died and was then buried alongside his wife in the Taj Mahal.

The Taj is in sight of the fort, so the son thought his act completely acceptable as at least his father would be able to see his wife's tomb from his cell. Not dissimilar to our visit to Borobudur in Indonesia when we were constantly ask to pose in hundreds of photos, here at the Agra Fort again we featured in many family photo shoots of people we don't know from Adam. Everybody was always so nice and polite about the whole thing, and so genuinely pleased with their photo that we couldn't refuse any of the requests, quite endearing.

After sunset we made our way back to town for dinner, found ourselves greeted with about the 10th power cut we have experienced since being in India and a nice dust storm blowing in our faces. Up at 5.30 the following morning we stroll down towards the Taj, passing a park on the way completely full of families picnicking, playing badminton, football and of course - cricket, using piles of bricks as stumps. Clearly Indian families taking advantage of the short amount of daylight available to them before the sun is fully up, making the prospect of any of these sort of activities hell on earth. Included within your £11 (!!) entrance ticket to the Taj is a bottle of drinking water and some shoe covers, so when you walk around on the White marble you don't blemish it in any way - an improvement from the last time Claire was here several years ago, when you just had to remove your shoes, though once the sun is up the marble got so hot walking around bare foot was pretty much impossible unless you happen to have asbestos soles on your feet...

Catching the first glimpse of the Taj is every bit as spectacular as you imagine it to be, an amazing structure laid out in perfect symmetry throughout with the exception of the second tomb added by the overthrown kings son at a later date. It supposedly took some 25 odd years to construct by the hands of some 20,000 workers in the mid 1600's. There are many myths about Taj and one is that all the craftsmen who participated in its construction had their hands chopped off afterwards to prevent them making anything as beautiful ever again… there is not actual evidence to support this but it adds to the mysticism all the same. Many domestic visitors to the Taj come on a pilgrimage to touch the sacred tombs, which means they are not there for the perfect photo opportunity like your average non Indian tourist, hence getting there for sunrise means there are only a handful of people around, the light is great for photos and the heat of the day has not yet become unbearable. By 8 am we were heading back to the hotel for breakfast, though thought we would take a detour around the back streets of Agra.

Unsurprisingly we didn't stumble upon some lovely little district at the foot of the Taj, but yet more poverty and squalor. People were starting their days after having slept on the street, the same streets kids were openly using as a toilet, surrounded by litter and flies. The levels of poverty, sanitation and hygiene reflecting something that really should not still exist in the 21st century.

Leaving Agra we board a train headed to the state of Rajasthan and its capital, the ‘Pink City’ of Jaipur.