Agra day two

We had a 5am wake up today in order to see the Taj Mahal at sun rise. We met Badam in the lobby at 6am and we caught an auto ricksaw to the ticket office of the Taj Mahal near the East Gate. It was not open when we first arrived so we waited around for 10 minutes and then set off to wait in the line to get in for another 10 - 15 minutes. We were very excited as we waited in line with everyone else for the gates to open.  It was a slow process once the gates did open as we had to have our tickets stamped by one man and then go through a security search. There were separate lines for male and female high value tickets (Foreigners) and Indian male and females. Because there were not many Indian females Catriona was allowed to join that line and passed through much quicker than David. Once inside we took many pictures of the Taj Mahal and a man showed us some of the best spots to take photos and took a couple of us for a small fee.

 

We spent an hour wandering around taking photo and admiring the building, we also went inside. As we were leaving we managed to see the sparkling of the semi precious stones in the sunlight and David took a photo of Catriona in the seat where Lady Di had her photo taken. We headed back to the hotel in a cyclo whose driver picked up a friend along the way and sat on the cross bar in front of the driver!

After breakfast we checked out of our room and set off with the group (minus Rich who was not well) to the Agra fort. Our guide through the fort was informative and we were shown the different sections of the palace and where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son. We met our new tour leader Gi before setting off back to the hotel.

We wandered over to the shopping centre across the road and Terri and Anne bought some bangles and Catriona bought a sari. She had to be measured so they could make the top that goes with the sari and we were to come back at 6pm to pick it up. We had lunch at McDonalds (French fries and a McFlurry), went back to the hotel where Badam sent us on our way to the new group at our new hotel where Gi was waiting for us. We checked in and were asked to meet back in the lobby at 2.30pm. We introduced ourselves to everyone in the group as they turned up. There are a New Zealand couple Mary and Phillip, Bronwyn and her brother Patrick and friend Carli from Melbourne and Alisha and Prue who went to Uni in Newcastle NSW together. We met up with our old group at the Taj Mahal and spent the afternoon wandering around and watching the sun set. We took many more photos as the light was much better this afternoon. We also managed to get a group shot with everyone which was taken on Terri's camera.

After sunset we said our goodbyes to the old group and set off back to the hotel to freshen up before having dinner at Maya restaurant with the new group. Gi organised for the driver to take us to the shopping centre to pick up Catriona's sari and after dinner we managed to upload to the blog and some pictures to flickr.