Agra home of the Taj. Mahal, a wonder of the world. I must admit straight away that the baby Taj is in my mind a more detailed and ornate piece of work, and hence in my opinion more pleasing. Though the Taj is simply a very imposingly impressive work of art and devotion.

Whilst visiting the sites I ran into a Frenchman (what a Frenchman? Travelling? Surely not? It feels as if there must be no French left in France as I have seen and met so many on my travels) By the name of Vince. We scaled the red fort and the baby taj together before parting ways. It was extremely joyful to have a conversation with someone other than Pigly who’s conversation is starting to resemble his appearance; tattered and worn.

The next day I went via bus out to Fatephur Sikri a colossal palace build by Akbar for his son. Apparently Akbar had three wives a Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian and no children and he sought out a holy man at the Center of what would be the palace and the holy man told him he would have a son and it came true and so Akbar built this grand city palace over the spot. The holy man is entombed inside the palace in his own shrine. It was the capital of India for about 8 years until it had to be replaced due to lack of enough water.

A very awesome place to visit, lots of awesome market streets and grand views around the palace into the countryside. There was a festival happening and people everywhere.

I decided in Agra that I was over Indian cities and needed to keep moving towards the mountains to acclimatise. So I reluctantly skipped Jaipur and Delhi and moved instead to Patna just past Varanasi.

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