We’ll we showed up at the train station in Amritsar at 3:30PM for our 4:10PM train to Agra.  Make that our 5:00 train…  Actually 6:00…  Well, actually 7? No, 8:00 train.  Which then lost 2 more hours, finally arriving in at 3:30PM instead of 9:30AM.  And today is Thursday.  And tomorrow is Friday – the day the Taj Mahal is closed. 

So we ran, and we made it in by 5:00PM – security is tight and took a long time.  And it costs a FORTUNE – like 750 rupees – or almost $20US.  (Tonight’s hotel is 400 to put it in perspective…)  But the Taj is worth every rupee. WOW.  Amazing.  And it’s not white.  Well, it is, but it’s all engraved with verses from the Koran inlaid in black and beautiful flowers inlaid…  Wow.

Went for a great dinner and the power only went out once…  (Dasaprakash – fabulous chain of Indian restaurants – they even have some in other countries).  It was actually kind of hilarious.  The power went out so we took out our mini-Maglite.  They’re made so you can twist off the front of the flashlight and it forms a base on which the handle and bulb of the flashlight can stand, like a candle.  So, a few twists and we were eating by 21st century “candle” light.  The rest of the restaurant was still dark, and you could see everyone looking at us in amazement!  Of course, since it was a nice restaurant they have their own generator for power outages and the lights were soon back on.  Still, gotta love those Maglites!  

So tomorrow we check out the fort, and maybe the view of the back of the Taj (same as the front).  Also another tomb they’ve nicknamed the Baby Taj, and an abandoned city called Fatepur Sikri.  Then we catch the night train to Varanasi.  (The train was actually really nice on the way here…  just a little slow).