Two Days in Agra and the Trip Back to Delhi

Travelling light in India!!!!
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Amazing to say the least...more to come

and here it is.

Amazing to say the least

The Taj Mahal was simply everything I imagined it to be. On arrival in at mid -day we decided to relax at the hotel - the pool at the Amar Villas was truly to be seen to be believed. We swam and had lunch by the pool. Then early evening we decided to have a peek at the Taj - was could already see it from our hotel but decided on closed inspection. We aere meeting Ian and his tour the next day but decided we wanted to see it at sunset. WE headed down on the hotel golf buggy and then a hotel cgard escorted us to the gates - you can't drive all the way there. Hawkers everywhere and dozend of "Government" tourist guides all trying to offer their services. We tried to shake them off and not have a guide but in the end the most persistant came with us and he was really very nice - PK Singh - good guide. I was glad we had a guide because as our guide in Jaipur said, without the knowledge these monuments are merely buildings. PK introduced us to a professional photographer who came with us and took our photo all around the Taj. 2500 rupees for 24 pphoto's which we were a bit skeptical about. However we have as a result of this photographer som very lovely photographs at all the best spots inside and in front of the Taj Mahal. We have photo's on the "Diana" seat with the Taj Mahal reflected in the water. in hindsight this was a really good thing although at the time we were wondering if we were being stiffed!

Packed lunch on the bus - we copped a bit of flack for this.
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The next day we watched the sun rise on the Taj from our balcony at the hotel while we ate a leisurely breakfast...now this is how to see india!!!

9.30 am we were heading back to the Taj and there was BP Sings waiting for us again - boy these guys are persistant. The next mission was to locate Ian and his crew - no problem, one of them spotted us. so there we were all one bug happy family at the Taj Mahal. We took more photo's but looking back we did well to have the photogtapher the day before as none of the photo's we took the next morning had the beautiful reflections that the previous day's photo's had.

Agra Fort
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Check out the photo's on the Things to do link they are all there.

Ians Tour guide sent a driver to collect us and meet their bus at mis-dai and we joined their tour for lunch ....Glad we had organised a picnic luunch for ourselves from our hotel - indeed it was not what we had become accustomed to! However it was great to join up with them all and hear anout their adventures on their motorcycle trip through the Himalayas and into Kashmir.

Then onto a jewellery and embriodery place which was really worth the visit - stunning embrioderies and amazing jewellery - we got to try on the "big" jewells which was a bit of fun.

Agra Fort - very hot that day - over 40 degrees and it felt every bit of it!
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Then on the bus and a hop-skip and a jumt to Delhi - a mere 196 km's which took nearly 6 hours on the bus - bloody hell!!

So glad to see the Imperial Hotel again that night!!!