Mike Harpham in India: Day 15 - agra and the Taj Mahal

The cold is finally clearing, thanks for asking, and here we are in Agra - capital of the Mughal empire.

The Mughals are an interesting crowd and the stories of it's emperors can rival the Ceasars or the Borgias any day (or maybe it's just that power thing those emperors had?).

Two of the more interesting characters include the founding father - Akbar the Great - and his understanding that if you want to build an empire in Asia, you keep in grand style a Hindu wife, a Muslim wife and a Christian wife at the same time. And of course his grandson, Shah Jahan - builder of the Taj Mahal out of his undying love for his first wife, only to die after eight years in prison, at the hands of his own son. And sometimes we think we have it bad.....

So how was the Taj Mahal?

Incredible.

Incredibly beautiful as befits a mausoleum to a beautiful wife.

Incredibly grand as befits the mausoleum of the wife of an emperor.

Incredible in it's perfect simplicity of design and colour as befits the perfect simplicity of two people in love.

I did the Lady Di pose (see below - apparently it's de rigeur, so the guide told me.....well actually she didn't actually say "de rigeur", more "you have to wait 15 minutes to sit on that bench in the afternoons as so many people want to pose where Lady Di sat." Luckily, this was 7.45am by now and so had to wait for no one - good enough for me....

By 8.30am, the place was heaving with tourists and therefore time to leave for breakfast.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Tonight - overnight train to Varanasi. This part of the trip has the potential to be the most incredible experience so far, or one of the worst!

Until tomorrow.

Taj Mahal - Front - 7.30am