Agra : The pearl next to a decidely dirty lake

so right, Delhi finished over and done with, we decided to assault Agra the next day. assault is the right word. so the situation : two cameras (one of which could store about 600 images) in the hands of two people who have a passion for capturing anything remotely touristy, namely mom and bro, and one harried non photogenic, photo -op hater, namely me, and a neutral dad, off to the taj in a bus with a schizophrenic A.C.

i love visiting old monuments, what i hate is the touristy element. you know, that whole group thing with a guide in the middle, trashing out facts, and then cliched photo poses. i don't necessarily have a problem with it, it just makes me go , " bugger".

our first stop was the Agra fort, which, if you have a moment to spare, is magnificent. but since the temperature was 43 when we came to visit, i didn't have a moment to spare. bugger. the heat can destroy so many moments sadly. all the photos we took at the fort and later at the taj have me frowning. and then the assaultees were in turn assaulted by the " in house" photographers both at the fort and at the taj. they are the most annoying race next to IA's cabin crew. they haggle you, they show you the grand range of their ouvre, they haggle you some more and the only way to get rid of them is to succumb. yes, get a photo taken and be done with it.

after the fort, it was time for the taj. i still relish my first sight of the taj, way back, 8 years ago, on a school trip. my heart skipped a beat. it still has the same affect. the sight of the taj, through the darwaza, is still awe inspiring. the kind of mood when "harry met sally" becomes tolerable. yea slightly mushy. but a nice feeling. yes the taj is magnificent, but pity its so neglected though. rather deeply under valued. but the heat can still spoil all these nice mushy feelings. and then my parents had this ruddy mad idea about sitting on this love seat and having a photo taken, thesame seat where DI pointedly sat alone, rmbr?. ruddy mad idea because hullo? its 43 degrees, how can anyone be smiling? or how can any one want memories?. it takes all kinds.

while returning from the taj, the A.C finally gave out and there was mutiny on HMS southern travels. and that was funny because the mostly gult passenggers were trying to speak hindi and sound nasty and threatening. the bus puttered to a stop at mathura, which is a shockingly dirty place. since we were the only folks not to fight with the driver about the A.C, the man stopped another bus, and got us seats on it while the other passengers were busy temple hopping. thus, the weird face of come uppance. oh btw the A.C on this new bus was rocking. the frown ceased to exist but sadly both the shutters were closed