We rode the early morning train to Agra to see the most famous building in the world. We got a car and driver for the day, which was efficient and reasonably priced. I also thought it would keep the ripoff artists away from us, but I should have realized that we had just put a ripoff artist in our car for the day.
You pass through this tight gateway and get your first glimpse of it. People start losing their minds at this point and every camera is lifted high.
And then, there it is. The Taj Mahal. It does not disappoint. It is actually rather hard to properly photograph. The pollution is thick in Agra (as it is everywhere) and the Taj is so gleaming white, blindingly white, it just disappears into the fog from any distance. I have a dozen pictures of us standing in front of nothing but fog.
After the Taj, we had lunch at a nearby rooftop restaurant I chose with a view. Tour guide was pissed that he couldn't steer us to his buddy's restaurant to get a kickback.
Then it was on to the Agra Fort.
Kinda similar to the Red Fort in Delhi.
The Taj off in the distance.
Aaron has confused India with Egyptian mummies.
Indian people don't smile for pictures. Such colorful saris!
After the Agra Fort we visited Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city from the 1600s. Of course we got scammed here once again. An insistent wannabe tour guide finally convinced me to give him 100rupees ($1.60) to take us around. He then took us to the free mosque area, NOT the abandoned city. We ended up having about 15 minutes to look at Fatehpur Sikri. We got sucked into buying some handcarved stuff from who I assume was his cousin.
Afterwards we drove back to Agra for dinner. Suprise, the restaurant I wanted to go to was "on the other side of town" and we would never have time. So ripoff guide took us to an outrageously overpriced restaurant with one other diner. Yep, got us again.
