Got up early and met the driver and our guide for the day at 6:30 am. They took us a few blocks up the road to the ticket office and helped us buy our passes, then drove us part of the way to the Taj Mahal's East gate...as far as cars were allowed to go. (There is an exclusion zone around the Taj where cars are not allowed in an attempt to reduce the pollution damage to the stonework.) From there we walked the rest of the way.

At the gate there were separate lineups for men and women, with men on the right and women on the left. 
 
The guide went with Ken in the men's line and basically pushed him through the lineup so he was inside quickly, but then they both had to wait 20 minutes for Heather to get through the women's line on her own. 
 
While waiting they watched a monkey raiding the nearby trash can to retrieve treats that people had to discard before going through the security check, since no food is allowed inside.
 
The security tried to confiscate the towel tabs again. They keep thinking they are food and it requires a great degree of explanation to convince them otherwise.

Inside the gate there is a large rectangular courtyard with gates on all sides. The East, West and South gates all lead from the outside world into the courtyard, but the only entrance to get to the Taj Mahal proper is through the very large gate on the North side. 
 
It is impossible to see the Taj Mahal from the courtyard, so it only comes into view as you pass through this second gateway. It would have made a nice photo if it were not for the throng of people standing in the gateway taking selfies.

Once inside we followed our guide around the complex, including the Taj itself and the associated mosque. Of course we took lots of photos.
   
   


He occasionally insisted on taking pictures of us with the Taj in the background, and we competed with the hundreds (thousands?) of other tourists for photo ops.
 
He also pointed out some of the intricate stonework, with marble carvings and inlaid stonework.
   
The most intricate stonework is on the inside, but no photos are permitted there.

After a couple hours of this we headed back to the hotel and Ken had breakfast while Heather rested in the room.

At about 11 am we were ready to go again and headed off to the Agra Fort. 
   
 
 
 
 
Again, the guide showed us around, but this time was more interested in finishing up and getting on with his day. We ended up leaving him standing at the exit while we went back to explore an interesting part of the fort that he had skipped over completely. 

The thing we found interesting was that the construction was all post-and-beam using large slabs of stone, as opposed to stone arches. 
 
After that we set our guide free had Mr Guru drive us across the river to a tomb that they call the 'Mini-Taj-Mahal', mainly because of the finely crafted marble stonework that is on par or better than that of the Taj.
 

From the edge of the garden we had a good view of the river, which was clearly polluted by human waste and had bags of trash and other refuse floating by. And there was a group of boys swimming in the dirty water!
 
In the river and along the grassy opposite bank there were hundreds of water buffalo, which it appears that people in town keep and lead to the river to graze during the day, then lead back home in the evening.
 
 
Then went back to the hotel to have a couple beer and relax until evening. Near sunset, we had Mr Guru drive us back across the river to a spot on the riverbank opposite the Taj Mahal to watch the sunset. 
 
While there, Ken walked down the bank to where the water buffaloes graze and got yelled at by a man in uniform with a rifle. It seems there is a security zone around the Taj due to fear of a terror attack and so they don't allow people down on the river bed. (Though the man with the gun didn't bother about the water buffalo herders who went by in the same spot.)

All during this time, Heather was working on booking flights for the next phase of our sabatical. After much difficulty with getting credit card payments to work, she locked in our flights to SE Asia. We're flying to Japan in early January and returning from South Korea in early April. Yay!

After sunset we rode back to hotel, had supper and then went to bed early.