The Taj Mahal, Agra, (North India - Day 7)

Well you have to don't you. When in Rome and all that. Agra is mostly on the way to the Chambal River from Bharatpur and it is one of the most recognisable buildings on the planet. I can also vouch that it is an amazing sight. Getting in is relatively simple even on a busy holiday if you arrive earlier than the crowd. As a foreigner you can expect to pay 37.5x what an Indian does but you get a priority queue. The biggest drawback to the Taj Mahal, beyond the hawkers outside, is the fact that there is just one loo facility for men and one for women, that latter with just three cubicles! There must have been 2,000 people there when we arrived, early on Christmas Eve. Do the sums... oh, and they have a bloke there trying to tap foreign visitors for extra cash for using the toilets. Oh, and no soap or towels either.... you have been warned.

Putting that aside the buildings on the site are spectacular:

As is the Taj itself:

A side view:

The building is covered in verse from the Koran:

Another campus building:

And finally a view of the entrance from the Taj:

We didn't hang around, the place was filling up and it was time to head out of Agra and on to Chambal...