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Woke up way too early to catch the car to the IITC Maurya hotel - where my tour was due to embark from. Sheila insisted on booking me the luxe tour, as she noted, (speaking softly and conspiratorily), "I could have saved you money on the cheaapp tour, but I believe there are often people on drugs on those types of things." I am unable to argue.

I disembarked at the IITC's opulent lobby, and settled myself on a super-plush armchair to await the car. The little brochure and the man upfront had led me to believe that tea was free from the lobby's restaurant, so I wandered in and ordered a cup (silly me.) I drank it quickly and was displeased to discover that a Maurya Hotel seal of approval cup of tea costs 280 rupees - I didn't even have that much cash in my wallet. With no other options, I whipped out my credit card.

At that moment, the large, sweating man who occupied (with entirety) the table next door boomed, "What, you pay for a cup of tea with a credit card?" I shrugged, embarrassed, and he made a chopping motion with his hand - "Psh! I will cover it for you! Sit down, sit down, I am Bollywood!" He was wearing a vest and nothing under it, since he claimed, "I sit here, drink tea and coffee all night, I get terribly hot...." - (I disbelieve he was only drinking tea.) He insisted I take down his contact info in my book, for "I am very big in Agra! They LOVE me in Agra." I shall have to google him later and find out if he is actually Bollywood or simply a drunk man with a considerable amount of money, but I did get a free cup of tea out of the situation and that is good enough for me. (I am beginning to think I should write a brief guide to scoring free drinks in foreign countries.)

In any case, the bus finally arrived and I managed to drag myself away from my benefactor (the waiter looking devastatingly embarassed the entire time), making it out to my seats. I began chatting with the two people in front of me, who turned out to be FedEx pilots on a brief swing through New Delhi: naturally they had to see the Taj. They had traveled just about everywhere due to the nature of their job, and I enjoyed listening to them talk casually about Morocco and Dubai and Italy, as I gave them a few tips on India. The scenery outside as we moved to Delhi gave me a curious sense of deja-vu: it reminded me of nothing more then the I-80 route from Sacramento San Francisco, the same kind of dry lands scrub and occasional oases - though of course I-80 features considerably less camels, elephants, and tonga horse carts. Moving vehicles, however, put me straight to sleep, and I dozed under my lovely new red and pink pashmina the entire rest of the way.

Our first stop was Akbar's brilliant red mausolem, which emerges in grand Mughal splendor from the flat and unprepossessing desert land that accompanies it. It was getting very hot by me and we disembarked, panting, from the bus, shouldering aside the hordes of eager bangle and figurine sellers who pounced upon us. We walked up the wide avenue to the mausolem, all set off in red and white tiles, passing through the gateway which was decorated in beautifully written passages from the Quaran. As you pass through the gateway, you have sudden and gorgeous exposure to the sight-lines the Mughal emperors must have had: the crisp green gardens spreading out from the water-canals that pointed right to the center of the tomb and the cenotaph within, herds of dainty antelope playing and fighting among the flowers and palm trees beside.

The mausoleum itself: almost heart breaking. I have always had a slightly embarassing and highly romantic ability to be moved by architecture: this was a stellar example of such. You walk through the richly decorate entry-way and pass through a dark tunnel into the inner sanctum, which is, surprisingly, almost totally undecorated but for a black cenotaph and an ornate and wired incense burner hanging directly above. Even the tourists go a bit quiet inside, although the acoustics are incredible, as a man who called out a bit of the Quaran showed us: sound bouncing off in melodic, dense waves from the geometrically outlined ceiling. Pigeons called to each other quietly from the rafters and tiny half-seen bats chased from end of the roof to the other - (you may never be completely alone in eternity, you will always have companions: tourists for Akbar by day, and bats and pigeons to see him through the night.) The tomb is supposed to be an elegy and not a poem (as the saying goes), and I think that is an apt description of it as there might possible be. You walk into it and feel sad and melancholy, but not over so - you are reminded, merely, of how terribly short things can be.

So back on the bus.

Next stop was the Agra Fort, where the poor Shah, builder of the Taj Mahal, was impriosoned by his unappreciative son to the end of his days. The scale, of course, is majestic, red sandstone walls bursting out of the plains and up and away, and it's a curious, tropical experience to walk through the ramp and up the red gates, entering an inner sanctum of green palm trees and sweating benches. But the red does not and cannot go on forever: when you enter the place of the Shah and his harem's imprisonment, everything turns into startling white marble, evocative of the Taj itself, worked over nicely with lapis-lazuli and wire and precious stones. You stand at the entrance to the complex and look over the gorgeous, geometric gardens of red and green that Babur himself was so partial too, looking right into the bedrooms and living chambers of the Shah and his women. (But he only had eyes for Mumtatz, which is what they say.)

The Taj can be viewed across the lazy blue river from the screens, can be viewed from between white columns and delicately carved white marble walls. (But just the back portion, which was in my opinion more then salubrious enough though viewed from distance.) Although you can not go onto it, you can see out onto the porch where the Shah himself died, eyes fixed on the Taj Mahal (I presume) until he finally took it upon himself to expire - this is another tragedy written in architecture, and it is as beautiful and lonesome as I had imagined.

We broke for lunch at the fanciest hotel in Agra, whose name unfortunately escapes me. It was refreshing enough: we disembarked and walked through a lovely garden delicately spritzed with a fountain, and I even saw a slinky brown mongoose disappearing into the geraniums. The lobby was all engraved white marble and pomp, of course reminescent of the Taj itself. Even the buffet lunch was excellent: I had some unusual and tasty jackfruit curry and the only reputable Chinese food (mushrooms in black bean sauce) I have encountered here in India, along with a tasty sort of preserved fruit thing serving as an Indian dessert. We hung out and chatted in the profoundly air conditioned air: next was the Taj.

You approach the Taj up a rather dusty and tourist infested path, then are dumped from your bus and made to board another one (as tourists cannot be expected to walk any distance over a quarter of a mile.) This takes you to the gates of the complex, where a grim faced security woman pats down sensitive parts of your body and ushers you inside. You walk down a long long red stone gallery until you reach a gateway: the Taj is before you.

It is a tragic cliche but the Taj truly is the most perfect piece of architecture the world has ever generated: it cuts through the sky in white marble perfection, juxtaposed prettily against the blue afternoon. It is entirely true that "no part of it displeases the eye" - you comtemplatively scan it hoping for some sort of human flaw, some discordant component, and find none. Tinkling, aqua-colored canals run from the gateway to the doorway of the Taj itself, tracing off in geometric water-ways all throughout the gardens - which are shot through with flowers and palms. (No gazelle here, sadly.)

It was of course deadly hot and we slipped on foot covers to walk out on the white porch to enter the sanctum within, laughing Indian tourists in brilliant red and orange sarees padding barefoot over the super-heated marble floors. The inner sanctum itself is another elegy: blinding light giving way to a subtle, halting darkness, a screen of beautifully wrought wire surrounding the cenotaphs of the Shah and Mumtaz. The screen around the tombs is decorated with rainbow colored images of flowers and vines, none exactly the same - the flower opens and closes and opens again in close sucession (life proceeding too in endless circles, Hindu or no Hindu, we will meet again someday.) The usual dark incense burner hangs here too in quiet outer space, accomapanied as usual by softly gurgling pigeons.

I walked out into the open air again and tracked the aqua-blue canals back down to the gateway, encountering a man who claimed to be the Taj's own gardener, and a blushing young Indian man with his English relations who wanted me to pose in a picture with him. (I always say yes. Why do I always say yes?) I made it back to the red stone gateway and watched the view for a happy 15 minutes or so, a big and jubilant Indian family squabbling good humoredly behind me. (This was their monument too, and anyway, their Hindi accented nattering gave the place a sort of life that might be denied it otherwise.) Then we got back on the bus.

So what did I think of the Taj? I am entirely happy I saw it and entirely happy I took it upon myself to awaken early and haul all the way to Agra: it is truly as perfect as I had dreamed of it being. It is of course slightly smaller then I had expected but I find that that only adds to its beauty: it is just overstated enough, its beauty functioning on the calm scale that most truly beautiful things manage. And yes, it is sad, terribly sad: a love poem erected by a man who was not particularly lucky, an elegy to a woman who died too young. (I hope I can find a man someday, who will build me such a thing when I pass, but I think I will be lucky with a correctly spelled tombstone and some fake geraniums.)

In any case, we got back on the bus and proceeded to the Official Tourist Shopping Centre, full of hideous and expensive knick-knacks (along with some pretty marble tables.) As I definitely do not have the financial wherewithal to purchase a single thing on offer in that shop, I decided to wander down the street and pick up a Diet Coke instead. I found myself being nervously followed by the overweight and sweating tour organizer, who yelled, "No, come back! You will get drink here!" I explained I had been in India about seven weeks already and was unlikely to be abducted in a sleepy street in Agra if it had not already happened, and this seemed to convince him to retreat to the air conditioned cool of the bus. I bargained the shop-keeper down to 30 rupees from 50 for a coke (highway robbery!) and sat around and watched the shop assistants attempt to sell people crap they didn't need. Then back on the bus to Delhi.

I slept almost the entire way, although we did stop at a nice bus stop for dinner. I convinced the two FedEx Pilots to order some dinner, and they were deeply impressed at how delicious and cheap a simple supper of veg curry and samosas can be at a good ol' Punjabi Dhaba. (Well, this one was nice. It even had lovely bathrooms. And a snake charmer.)

We got back to the Maurya around 10 at night. Some sort of super glitzy do was going on, and models and Bollywood stars cruised the lobby on their way out of the lovely golf themed bar. I found myself wishing for a shower and my evening gown so I could join the fun. The FedEx pilots kindly invited me to join them for a bottle of French red wine and I was sorely tempted, but my driver came for me and I went on back to bed.