Debbie’s view after reading the guide books and blogs, and talking to people who’d been, was that Agra was a bit of a sh*thole and that the best approach was to arrive, see the Taj Mahal, and leave again as quickly as possible – so that’s what we planned.

Another of the super nice trains, with us in Executive Class (EC) seats at a cost of around £12 each, whisked us 3.5 hours from Sawai Madhopur to Agra Cantt station. It was on this journey, with only 5 of us in the carriage, that we discovered the ability to rotate the seats 180 degrees to face the other way or 90 degrees to look directly out of the window – clever.

We’d had some trouble communicating with our accommodation – these must be the only people in India not wedded to WhatsApp – so were unsure whether a tuk tuk had been arranged to collect us from the station, and it turned out that they hadn’t even read the message asking them to, so we had to run the gauntlet again but found a guy who said he knew exactly where our homestay was. They all say that, but he actually did! First impressions on the 20 minute drive were that Agra didn’t look bad at all actually – maybe we’ve got this wrong?

Aman Homestay is VERY highly rated on Agoda, Booking.com and Tripadvisor, and was even featured in the travel section of The Guardian. It’s more a small family-run boutique hotel than a homestay, probably with 10 or so rooms over 3 floors, two glass elevators, lots of ‘bling’ and funky lighting, roof terraces with loads of seating on the 4th and 5th floor (one with a baby grand piano!) and an honesty fridge with relatively expensive beer and wine. Most importantly it’s walking distance from the Taj Mahal, of which it has a distant view from the rooftop terraces. We were to be here for just 36 hours – 1 part-afternoon and full day, then leaving on a 6am train on day 3. They’d also not read Debbie’s message asking them to arrange a guide – frustrating after sending her details by WhatsApp on taxis, guides & prices – but made a quick call and secured us a guide for the Taj Mahal for the following morning, pick up at 05.45 to get in early, beat the crowds and experience sunrise at the Taj.

Our room was good, but we’ve been spoiled on room sizes so far this trip and a more normal sized hotel room seemed small. But there was a bath – OMG, Debbie had only that day been wondering whether it’d be another 2 years before she was able to have a bath again, once we get back from our travels and returned to our house. We booked for dinner that night and Debbie raided the honesty fridge, grabbed a Kingfisher and headed to the roof for the first glimpse of the Taj Mahal in the distance. She got talking to Gary & Deborah from Sheffield, got some tips on the Taj, scams and street stall samosas, and was inspired by Deborah to indulge in half a bottle of wine from the fridge to enjoy with her bath. Dinner was a lovely home-cooked vegetarian communal affair with Gary, Deborah and two ladies (from the USA and Finland) who were taking the weekend to visit Agra during a business trip to Delhi and off to the Taj first thing in the morning like us.

The other great feature of the room was free Netflix (Steve had cancelled our subscription before we left) so Debbie was excited at the prospect of watching Meghan Markle’s ‘inspirational cookery and lifestyle show’ (a car-crash apparently) for comedy value. After getting a replacement for the missing remote control, Steve refused to watch such utter dross and suggested the acclaimed mini-series ‘Adolescence’ instead. With very limited time available and a 5am alarm, probably not the best idea, but we managed to binge watch half of the series on the first night.

Blurry-eyed from too little sleep, we met our guide Mohammed at 0545 and he asked whether we wanted to walk or tuk tuk. We felt lazy which turned out to be a blessing as, even at that time, the East gate closest to our hotel was rammed with tour buses and the queues for tickets and entry were huge. So a 3Km detour in the tuk tuk to the West gate brought no queues, tickets were purchased and we were in the grounds by 0605. Mohammed gave us some information about the outer courtyard, the history of the site, the perfect symmetry and then told us to prepare ourselves to enter the central gate and get our first view of the Taj.

THERE ARE SIMPLY NO WORDS!

With the dawn breaking there, perfectly framed in the gate and shrouded in a slight mist, was the most famous and without a doubt most beautiful building in the world. Debbie felt a little bit emotional as we stood and looked in awe at the magnificent view facing us.

There were lots of people but it felt peaceful, we took our photos, and Mohammed took some lovely ones of us in the iconic and most photogenic spots (including the Princess Diana bench). Apparently they closed the Taj for 2 hours for Princess Di, the whole day for Bill Clinton, but Prince William wanted no special treatment or impact on tourism when he visited. On looking at Mohammed’s brilliantly photographed shots on her phone, Debbie noticed that her blouse button was undone and she was flashing her bra, which Mohammed had thought was sunglasses tucked in the top of her shirt – so we needed to take more photos.

The Taj just doesn’t look real – it is just SO perfect. The scale and intricacy of the inlays in the marble is nothing short of wondrous, and it’s no surprise that it took 22 years to complete. At that time of day the light is changing rapidly and the Taj was looking different every minute. The sun rose just as we went inside and by the time we exited the sky was blue, the air clean, and the light quality even better for more photos.

Most visitors were very respectful of this important spiritual monument, dressing and behaving appropriately, but there’s always one – the Japanese-looking middle aged woman who discarded her jacket to reveal tight leggings and sports bra crop top and proceeded to wildly gyrate in front of the Taj while her companion gleefully filmed the Tok Tok (or other) snippet on her phone. Our guide was outraged and called over the security guard, who forced her to delete the video – they don’t want an online craze starting with inappropriate photos/poses/actions recorded at the Taj Mahal.

We spent almost 3 hours there – the theoretical limit to prevent overcrowding – and could’ve happily stayed all day. A vision that will be imprinted on our memories for a lifetime.

On the way back the tuk tuk was waiting at the West gate but we could have easily walked out and back to the hotel via the East gate – then the penny dropped, Mohammed had to take us to a place where the generations-old craft of inlaying marble was still practiced. It was intricate, skillful, time consuming and very beautiful – and then into another room where thousands of men must have worked for thousands of days to create the quantity of inlaid marble pieces for sale – or, much more likely, the stock had been supplemented with factory produced pieces! Gary and Deborah had warned us about this, as had Rough Guide (Agra Scams section)!! “We can send by FedEx” they say, “no point, we are away from home for 2 years” we reply, and “we have full rucksacks and can’t carry any of your smaller trinkets either”. But we did purchase a fridge magnet as we needed one anyway, shunning the ‘master craftsman’ version at £25 for the cheaper one probably manufactured by machine in China (like most of the other stuff for sale no doubt).

We thought about going to see some of the other sights of Agra, but nothing was going to come remotely close to what we’d already seen before breakfast, so we ventured out only to purchase a street-food samosa as recommended by Gary and spent the rest of the day on the roof terrace just looking at the Taj.

Another home-cooked dinner, this time with a big family from Perth (who kindly gave us their contact details in case we passed by their way), the regular Sunday FaceTime call with our new grandson, then we needed to finish Adolescence before grabbing a few of hours sleep before our 4am alarm.

We could’ve spend another day or more in Agra, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and anyway we don’t have time. We are so pleased we left Agra to almost the end of our time in India as, if we’d seen the Taj early on, everything else would have paled in comparison.

Next stop is Varanasi – wish us luck…….