Agra

After about 4 hours of sleep, Gulshan uncle, Anil uncle (a good friend of Gulshan uncle), and I took the Shitabdi Express train from Delhi to Agra. Not a bad ride. We paid for the air conditioned car which was pretty empty. They served us breakfast, gave us a newspaper, bottled water. Not bad. It was a long ride though, but we finally made it there. We hired a car to take us around.

Our first stop was the Red Fort. We went around and took some pictures. There wasn't as much stuff to look at as I thought there would be. But the design is interesting. From one of the windows, you can see the Taj Mahal, even if it is a little hazy. Unfortunately, the military has taken over a majority of the fort and has closed it off to tourists.

Our next stop was the mausoleum for Shah Jahan's treasurer or something like that.

We went to some stores to look around for stuff. Our driver wasn't happy because he wasn't getting any kickback. We did buy a few things, but we really haggled for some good prices. We even walked out at one point because the dealer wasn't giving us the price we wanted.

We went to eat at a place where the driver took us to eat. I wasn't that impressed with the food there. It was interesting though to try the dal makhani. Basically, they brought out some dal, with a stick of butter right in the middle. It was a fun time because I got to hear about some of the things Anil uncle and Gulshan uncle did when they were in school.

At this point, the driver's boss decides to tag along. I guess he needs to make sure the driver takes us to the right shops. Of course, we would get there, look around and then leave without buying anything. There was one place that we actually bought stuff. It was actually a marble shop that had some quality items. I bought a little Taj Mahal.

Finally, we made it to the Taj Mahal. We had to go through a little hassle. See, there's two entry rates. One for citizens and one for non-citizens. We tried to get citizen rates, but then we got caught. So we had to spend the money for the non-citizen rate. The Taj is as beautiful in person as it is in pictures. It is a smaller than you would think, but it is still awesome sight. I took alot of pictures. We hung out there for two hours to soak in the whole area.

We took the Taj Express on the way back. It doesn't have dinner, but it leaves a little earlier so we get back at 9 instead of 11.