Agra - The Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and Domino's Pizza

Two particularly nice things happened on my journey to Agra. The first was that I found a couple of new friends with whom to share my journeys and my time with. The second was that I saw the first of what would turn out to be many sightings of mass amounts of wild marijuana, which on this occasion was growing along the side of the railway tracks.

We visited the Taj Mahal at sunrise the day after we arrived in Agra. Just a little tip for anyone planning to do the same - the ticket office and the gates don't open until after sun rise so actually you can spend longer in bed and not miss out on anything! Another tip if you're in that part of India is to not miss out on going. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen, along with it's gorgeous gardens. Something interesting was that as we lined up to get in, we found that the ladies queue was far longer than the men's. In India there are often separate queues for ladies and men but normally this has been to my advantage, as this was the first time the ladies queue was longer.

We found that we were too early for the museum, which was in the grounds, to be open. So after our early start we took a nap in the garden until we were able to look around what turned out to be a rather small and unexciting museum. Then that was it, we were finished and it had taken us all of an hour and a half, nap time included! Our next stop was a near by cafe where we found delicious chocolate cake for breakfast.

We felt we'd had a particularly active start to the day and so returned to our hotel and discovered something very exciting. Here, in India, you can order and receive Domino's pizzas right to your hotel room. What a find!

The following day we set off to check out the Agra Fort. The fort itself was pretty huge and impressive and had lovely views across to the Taj Mahal in the distance. Getting around or doing anything else outside that day was a bit tricky though. It turned out that it was election day and so almost everything everywhere was closed and the streets almost completely empty. This was very strange, especially in contrast to the normally hectic, full, and noisy streets that you can expect to face anywhere in towns in this country.