Theres not many words that could make Agra sould attractive. If it didn't have the Taj Mahal or possibly Agra Fort then this town would be well, well off the tourist trail.
We caught the 3Ac train from Delhi and that was better than expected but long. The trip should only be 2 hours but we ended up taking almost 5 hours. A 3 Ac train means you share an open styled cabin with 6 other people. Our fellow travellers were nice enough but only one of them could speak english so the whole trip was spent with him interrpruting and when he wasn't there the other guys would just talk anyway even though we had no idea what they were saying. In the end I found the whole thing very tiring as I was still sick.
Our hotel was called the Tourist Rest House. The room was basic but very clean and they all centred around a small plant filled garden. Perfect for a quite eveing in. In the afternoon on our first day we just chilled out and took a bit of time to relax. We found it the pefect place to plan the rest of the trip and book our flights to Bangkok.
The next day we headed down to the Taj Mahal. Everyone says it and it's probably true. The Taj is possibly one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. The white marbel just stands out againts the polluted sky and drab, dirty city. Quite sad to think that it was built by a Mughal Emperor for his wife who died during child berth. And as if that wasn't enough his son then took over as the Emperor and threw him in jail for the rest of his life, giving him a small cell with a view of his wifes tomb. A nice son to have hey.
In the afternoon we went to Agra Fort but it all knid of looked like the Red Fort so we didn't hang around long. The next day we caught the train to Jaipur.