January 24 – 10:05PM – Agra.

We got into Agra at 4:30PM today after our train arrived six hours late. It was long and brutal. We checked into our guesthouse and went to a restaurant for dinner that had a view of the Taj. Even though we are staying close by we hadn’t yet had a glimpse of it until we walked up to the six story roof top restaurant. As we emerged from the dark stairwell into the open light we looked around and saw what was hard to miss, one of the most beautiful and well known buildings in the world. The golden sunset passing through the haze, casting its rays upon the white marble of the Taj Mahal giving the structure a radiating pinkish orange glow. The aura it emitted over the surrounding landscape was tangibly intense. It was so physically strong that you could almost hear the building in the near distance. Its majestic beauty was contrasted and accentuated by the surrounding ramshackle three story haphazardly constructed buildings that sprang up around the Taj like brown brick mushrooms feeding on the nourishment of tourist dollars. It was visual assistance that the building didn’t require.

Sitting on the balcony of the rooftop just staring at the Taj, I started to think about the past when I was so broke and so hungry that I had to ration my supply of cheap bread and crappy peanut butter and went to bed hungry some nights. I was happy back then, but it really puts a contrast to and makes me think about how lucky I am to have the opportunity to travel the world, to Europe, to Thailand, to Brazil and now to have the chance to sit and watch the sunset on the Taj Mahal. Wow.

As you can tell from my description, while the Taj is epic beautiful, the area around it is pretty crap. Not much to say except that it has barely standing feel and the town is thousands of miles below in comparison to the Taj with its dusty dirt streets and brown function-over-any-thought-of-form buildings. The street hawkers are ruthless here but not a problem if you know how to deal with them. Our guesthouse is the worst we have stayed in so far in India. I won’t even say its name because I don’t want to hate on it and its owners. Haven’t showered yet either so pretty dirty right now, but even with all of this complaining and criticism, would I want to be anywhere else right now? No.

We’ll wake up early tomorrow and tour the Taj.