Agra

After our first overnight train, we emerged from the station weary-eyed and choking on the pollution as we mingled with the touts and bartered for a ride to a hotel. We checked in, and made it to the entrance of "The Taj" by 7am just like our guidebook said we should.

We wandered around and enjoyed the grounds, saw the monument from a million angles and that was about a wrap. I was expecting the Taj Mahal to be extraordinary and a major highlight of our trip through the subcontinent. To be honest, I wasn't very wooed. Yet I can't quite put my finger on what ruined it for me. It's a beautiful place, and looked just as beautiful as I thought it was. It wasn't the exorbitant cost to enter as a foreigner. It wasn't the massive crowds. It wasn't the touts. It just wasn't the best part of India in my humble opinion. Agra felt very much like the arse-hole of the country in a lot of ways and I'm glad we didn't spend a whole lot of time there. I'm really glad that we had such a huge amount of time to see India, and that I hadn't limited our trip to just seeing the Taj.

Highlights

Finally sitting down after touring around the facilities to people watch and hang out half-asleep
Seeing the massive amounts of pilgrims who had traveled such a long time to see the monument

Lowlights

Fellow north american tourists demanding that the pilgrims be moved out of way so they could take pictures
Fellow north american tourists doing all sorts of other disrespectful and annoying things
Being stuck in Agra for 24 hours
The smog and pollution that made taking photos kind of a drag

Afterthoughts

It was our first overnight train and we were feeling pretty pooched when we arrived. We made it just in time to see the Taj first thing but I think being tired took away from some of the experience. Also, alot of the people who actually enjoyed the Taj had paid a guide for a tour. We hadn't.