Day 193. Agra, India. Ridiculous to sublime.

A horrible, horrible start to the the day when we witnessed Dubey running across the hotel carpark in his loincloth.

"Oh my god sir, I am oversleeping"

My god indeed, Dubey, out thoughts exactly.

20 minutes later this apparition was but a foul memory as we were feasting our eyes on something far more wholesome - the Taj Mahal.

A few Taj tidbits:

* Built between 1631 and 1653 by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his second wife Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to their fourteenth child.

* 20,000 artisans knocked it together, some travelling from as far as Europe for the prestigious gig.

* They'll have wished they hadn't bothered though if there's any truth in the story that Jahan ordered their hands to be chopped off when the job was finished. He reasoned (and he was obviously a reasonable man) that without the availability of such a skilled workforce, no-one else could recreate a building to equal the Taj's beauty.

* The construction bill ran to over 3 million rupees, equivalent to about 40 million quid today.

* The four minarets, which are purely decorative, lean slightly outwards so that in the event of an earthquake they would fall away from the precious Taj.

* There are thought to be more Taj Mahal curry houses in the UK than Red Lion pubs.

* None of them are a patch on the original.


The place fair takes your breath away. We arrived at dawn to beat the crowds and for a full three hours just stood and gawped like a couple of love-struck teenagers. A seminal, life-affirming morning if ever there was one.

Later, we took in Agra's huge Red Fort and Akbar's mausoleum, which ordinarily would've had us running for our dictionaries to dig out some new superlatives. Not today though, today was all about the Taj Mahal.

Dubey was back on form and managed to steer us through Delhi's diabolical rush hour traffic in time for our final vindaloo before heading north to Nepal. We had three days in his company that we'll never forget. An unflappable and genuine character, he's one of the nicest blokes we've met on our entire trip.

We'll be adding a link to his agency on our homepage, if ever you're in Delhi give them a call and put a request in for Dubey the driver - you certainly won't regret it.