Left Delhi, drove 4.5 hours, arrived Agra. Those 4.5 hour were so odd and surreal it’s difficult to convey their strangeness. Nor was I able to take any photographs: I was stunned to immovability. Plus, moving car.

There were massive swaths of unfinished highways covered in rubble and ending in sudden drop-offs. Extreme drabness, then pastel-colored buildings. People living in terrible squalor. People in beautiful, brightly-colored clothing. Weird signs. Pigs and primitive farming next to off-kilter skyscrapers. Buses so old, wobbly, dirty and dented I couldn’t believe they managed to carry all those people. Fantastically unsafe vehicles and driving. Thick, grey “air.” And on and on. You have to come to India to see for yourself.

First stop in Agra was the Red Fort, which was interesting and unusual, and it offered tantalizing peekaboo views of the TAJ MAHAL, which was the next stop. The TAJ MAHAL was visited today by me. I stood in front of the TAJ MAHAL. On the banks of the Yamuna River. Yes, I visited the TAJ MAHAL!

And I have ten quadrillion photos to prove it.

The Taj (we’re on first-name basis now) is a stunner, even when surrounded by me and 40,000 other souls. But oh to be here in quietude, or on a full moon . . .

Even though gazing upon it was a sublime experience, the visit was made weird by the crowds’ energies, the entry process, the monkeys racing around, the cows strolling around, and the children selling snow globes of it. But I’ll just shut up and show you the photos of the day. Hope you enjoy them.

P.S. I haven’t had Internet for days, so you will be bombarded a bit.