Warning: For me, swearing is like exposing yourself - it always livens up a good debate.

Once upon a time there was a great King who ruled the land. He built many great fortresses to protect his people and led with a strong but fair hand. One day, his wife died whilst giving birth.

The King was inconsolable.

Grief stricken, he ordered his finest builders and artists to design a memorial in her name. However, the King lost sight of his rule and seeing his chance, his son had him arrested and placed in one of the forts that the King himself had built. The King's son was not unnecessarily cruel however, and he made sure the King lived in luxury, with a view of the memorial he had built for his wife.

Here is that view.

I was travelling from Delhi on the morning Shatabdi Express to Agra solely to see the Taj Mahal. I'm not a morning person and Delhi station at six in the morning is not a good time to hassle me. But hey - this is India!

Someone came up behind me and said, "Excuse me sir, are you going to Agra?"

"Fuck off," I replied in a matter of fact way, as if I had just said Good Morning to a vicar. I didn't even turn around to look at him.

"Agra is a very beautiful city," he continued with his spiel, then trailed off as he realised what I had just said.

I climbed aboard the train and enjoyed an uneventful ride with a nice spicy breakfast thrown in.

I disembarked the train, bracing myself for the inevitable assault of the auto rickshaw drivers at the exit to the station. When I got there however, I saw perhaps the most beautiful sight I had ever seen in India. It wasn't the Taj Mahal. It wasn't Megan Fox in a thong. It wasn't even a magical self-filling beer glass. It was a bunch of auto-rickshaw drivers fighting each other - over me! They were so intent on getting to me first that they had started to brawl in the street. I stood in awe, chuckling contentedly, pleased with the mayhem I had created.

To be fair, the one who started the fight - the smallest of them all - was one of the honest drivers from the prepay stand fighting off the sharks who stand at the entrance and try to con tourists for three or four times the fare you would normally pay. When he saw me going to the prepay stand he stopped the skirmish, satisfied he had won the battle.

Good for him I say.

I had lunch at my hotel. I was the only person in the small restaurant and now I know why - the food was awful and the waiters (of which there were half a dozen bumbling about a small empty restaurant) were constantly trying to get me to buy extra dishes that even I couldn't possibly put away. I had enough money to pay for the food alone, but I put down a large bill so I could use some of the change as a tip.

After ten minutes, I still had not received my change. I asked where it was. They didn't have it; they had sent a boy out to get it.

After twenty minutes, still no change. I asked for it again, after which the waiters started talking furtively and occasionally giggling. After another ten minutes, the waiter came over and gave me my change. I counted it. Half of it was missing.

Now there are three sides to this story. Firstly there are the Indian waiters who are under pressure to get me my change but at the same time don't want to lose face, so they cobble together what change they have on them and give it to me in the hope I won't count it or I'll write off the missing amount as a tip.

Secondly there is me, who has learned all about saving face and understands that the waiters aren't up to anything malicious.

Thirdly there is the uninitiated foreign traveller who thinks these waiters are trying to steal from them. You see, the waiters had gone to such ridiculous lengths to save face, they hadn't even considered the fact that they could be accused of something much worse than wasting a customer's time - theft.

I asked for my original money back and gave them the exact change.

Then, for the first and only time in India, I complained to the manager of the hotel. This was more for their sake - if they had done this to someone who didn't understand what was going on, the police could have been involved (not that they would have done much except try to extort the tourist) and it could have gotten pretty messy.

Agra has a Red Fort as well as Delhi, but this one, though smaller in acreage, has more existing buildings and is considerably more beautiful.

The hall of public audience (Diwan I Am).

Built by Akbar and extensively added to by his grandson Shah Jahan, the differences between building styles is huge. Akbar used red sandstone and Hindu workmen, Jahan used white marble and Persian craftsmanship. However, both sit together beautifully.

Fort wall.

Inside the Musamman Burj where Shah Jahan was incarcerated.

Small, beautiful mosque called the Moti Masjid.

Part of the Jahangiri Mahal, built by Akbar for his son.

A cheeky monkey watches the sunset from the Jahingiri Mahal.

Afterwards, I got the auto driver to take me down to Mehtab Bagh which is on the opposite bank of the Yamuna River on which the Taj Mahal is located.

Here, you get a nice view of the rear of the building without hordes of tourists everywhere. There were about ten of us waiting expectantly for sunset and even from a distance, the Taj Mahal looked beautiful.

My simple fairy tale at the beginning of the chapter hides a darker truth to the lives of the Mogul Emperors. Shah Jahan who built the Taj (and many other exquisite buildings - see my Delhi blog for details) came to power by murdering his two older brothers and all of their families. Ruthless yet tolerant, he was to rule for nearly 50 years, building Delhi as his new capital. When Mumtaz Mahal, his second wife, best friend and favoured counsel died giving birth to their fourteenth child, he went into mourning for two years, during which time all his hair turned grey. As per her dying wish, he was determined to build the most beautiful and lasting memorial to her.

Building began in 1641 and it took over twenty thousand labourers and artisans drawn from Persia and Europe to complete over a 22 year period. Headed by the architect Ustad Ahmad Lahwari, it is rumoured that Shah Jahan had his hands cut off after completion so he could never produce a better work. This story is probably untrue as is the notion that Jahan intended to build a mirror image of the Taj on the opposite bank of the Yamuna River.

Jahan's third son, Aurangzeb, was furiously jealous of his brother, Jahan's favourite son who was to succeed him. In a military coup, Aurangzeb imprisoned his father at the Red Fort in Agra, then beheaded his brother and sent Shah Jahan the head as a gift. Emperors and their jolly japes, eh?

Jahan died at the Red Fort in 1666 probably from complications arising from an opium overdose and was buried next to Mumtaz in the Taj Mahal.

I awoke early next morning to be one of the first in line at the East Gate - a lesser used entrance but one that was on the same side as my hotel.

I walked down the darkened road, following a trail of camels that would later be used to parade a bunch of hapless tourists around. When I reached the gate, I was the first in line. A guard toting a semi automatic rifle asked me if I had a ticket.

"Can I get one here?" I asked hopefully.

"No - down the road." He pointed where I had come from.

Luckily, a bicycle rickshaw was passing by so I jumped on. Lala, my driver, was a bloody nice bloke and took me straight to the ticket office and waited for half an hour while I got my ticket. Then, pedalling manically, he took me back to the queue, chatting all the way.

I was about twentieth in line when I got back. Good enough.

After forty minutes or so the sun rose and they opened the gate. No one charged, no one ran. We all walked calmly, expectantly to the main entrance. There was a counter in the entrance hall and the people behind it were calling us over, but by now, I could see part of the Taj and carried on straight through excitedly. As I emerged from the main gateway, I could see it in all its glory. It was amazing.

Now I'm not going to launch into a barrage of superlatives that border on cliché. Instead I'll try to describe my experience.

On first seeing the Taj Mahal, it was like meeting a favourite film star - something that had always been remote and flat was suddenly bright and real before my eyes. I'd loved the building since I was a kid. I used to have something called a talking viewmaster - a children's toy used for viewing stereoscopic (3d) images that also had mini vinyl recordings attached to it. The picture of the Taj Mahal was my favourite and I would stare at it for hours, imagining myself there.

I walked up to the first viewing point. There were only five of us. I stared. It stared back serenely, the white marble glistening in the early morning light, the pools of water smooth like stainless steel blades cutting through the gardens.

What an utterly awe inspiring vision. The building in the background ain’t too bad either.

Three Japanese men started racing down the footpath so they could be first to the next viewing point, in the process ruining any more chances of a pristine shot for the people behind. I suppose it had to happen at some point.

I followed two German girls down the path who were braying with excitement at being so early. I took some more pictures for good measure, then I just enjoyed the walk up to the mausoleum, taking my shoes off as I stepped up onto the marble platform.

The German girls race off to get their towels down in the mausoleum.

As you get closer, you can see intricate patterns carved into the walls; colourful floral designs made from a number of precious and semi-precious materials that represent paradise on earth and black calligraphy that extends the borders of the archways over the doors.

I looked around. It looked strange seeing such a familiar building from an oblique angle.

The marble was cold and smooth beneath my feet as I made my way straight to the mausoleum entrance. I was the first inside. It was cool and dark, and a tout tried to show me around but I shooed him away. The bodies are actually entombed below the main mausoleum - just a representation of their coffins exist here. The room inside is octagonal and only about twenty metres across. It is dark, and lit by a single dim lamp. Although there was no wind outside, a ghostly murmuring sound echoed from around the walls. At first I thought it was the sound of people talking outside, but there was no one there.

To me, it was the sound of universal static, the whisper of a trillion suns in radioactive harmony. Barely perceptible above this was what seemed like moaning, contorted voices attempting to reveal their mystery. In reality, even the slightest brush of air moving through the ventilated dome above creates a sound that reverberates to the building's core, echoing and amplifying. It is very eerie indeed! I was really lucky to hear this because it was impossible to detect when more people entered a few minutes later.

I got the moon on a stick!

Outside I slowly walked around the main structure, taking in all the details. My feet were getting cold slapping listlessly on the marble so I got down from the platform and put my shoes back on. I went around to the east side where the morning sun was starting to sprinkle vibrant colours on the building's surface. I sat down and stared, losing myself in the immortal architecture of death before me. It was beauty engendered for beauty entombed.

Every few seconds, my brain would get that same moment of excitement and realisation of amazement when you realise you are actually alive right here and now. I was completely living in the present.

Feeling very satisfied, I slowly made my way back to the entrance, stopping a couple of times just to savour the experience. The sun had risen further and the colour of the marble had adopted a different hue. The shrine shone and shimmered in the distance like some amazing underwater treasure, forever out of reach. The crowds were really starting to flood in and I knew it was the right time to leave while I was still excited about being here.

The perfect Taj Mahal visit.

Outside, I saw Lala the superhuman bicycle rickshaw driver and asked him to cycle me back to the hotel. I told him how fantastic it had all been, but he'd heard it all before. It's strange, but even though the Taj Mahal is legendary, it is one of the few places I have ever been that actually surpasses all of the hype surrounding it.

Finally, I'd like to try to sum up the Taj Mahal. Rudyard Kipling called it, "the embodiment of all things pure," while Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore said it was, "like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time."

I thought long and hard about how I could describe it. My first effort, though succinct, wasn't quite up to scratch: "It's white. A bit like a toilet. Don't try and shit in it though."

My second effort was much better: "A pearl necklace on the face of eternity," but that didn't sound very original for some reason.

I gave up after that.

This picture took me longer to compose than any other, and I’m justly proud of it. It’s difficult taking really bad pictures intentionally! This adds to my substantial collection of joke pictures in front of world famous monuments.