The walk up to the caves was very hot - shirt soaked with sweat. The guide was very good. She explained all the statues of Shiva and Parvati and at the same time gave us a brief (not that brief) overview of Hinduism. Even more briefly - Hindus believe in no God, but in a "cosmic energy". Hinduism is not a religion, but a philosophy - it emphasises thought and disciplining the mind rather than blind faith or obedience. All the pantheon of gods, goddesses and other objects of worship are only symbols - because very few of the population could read or write it was easier to weave stories around concepts of good and evil, marriage, the different stages of life etc. Also this meant children could be taught quite complex morals - eg the battle between good and evil is not as simple as in Christianity - the demon Andhoka did some good, so was granted wishes, one of which was that he couldn't be killed. This shows that there is good and evil in all of us. Hinduism teaches that each person must learn what is good and bad within themselves, and try to emphasise the former and reduce the latter - "Think good, speak good, do good". Practice makes perfect. There's nothing about "divine forgiveness for sins" - it's DIY.

Hindus don't believe in heaven or hell - just in reincarnation. The ultimate goal is to be freed from this cycle of birth and death, and be as one with the cosmic energy.

There was much more - but I'm only writing down what I remember clearly. I like the way that Hinduism values science and scientific thought. Of course, this was one educated Indian's interpretation of Hinduism.

[Strangely, I didn't actually write down much about the caves themselves, except for a description of one of the carvings:] Shiva killing Andhoka (but can't kill him, as each drop of blood will turn into another demon, so S. collects blood in a cup). Also carries an hour glass to time the moment of death.

We had our first major cock-up of the trip in Bombay when we tried to board the train we had booked to Agra, only to find that the clerk had booked us on the previous day's train. A hectic, sweat-soaked hour followed, while our tourist quota man tried to get us on that train (no go) then on another one at 10.40pm.

All this is being written on that train (57down - the Dadar-Amritsar Express). We've had a comfortable nights's sleep, and we're now travelling through the unbearable heat of the day, and it's only 10am.

Rakesh Kumar (Ricky)
27/846 Dr. Ambedkar Nagar
Sector III
New Delhi - 110062

­ This was one of the schoolboys who had the two bunks next to ours. He is 17, and goes to college on Delhi to study commerce and business management. He taught me a few words of Hindi:

Rakesh seemed older than 17, and to have much more certainty and self-confidence than most people in Britain of that age.

Even more self-confident was a younger (?) schoolboy with an unhealthy interest in Nazi Germany, and a strong belief that India needed conscription to build character and reform potentially antisocial elements.

We had about 3½ hours unbroken sleep and an hour and a half of napping with one eye on the clock and the other on the map, to make sure we didn't miss Agra. At the station a steam locomotive rumbled and hissed its way down the platform and stopped, so I went for a closer look. It was a black behemoth, something like 2-8-4 but I'm not sure, with high and low-pressure cylinders and an 8-wheel tender. The driver saw me admiring it and asked me up to the footplate for a demonstration of shovelling coal, blowing the whistle, and tapping the steam gauge. With his black eye-patch he looked like a pirate.

The auto-rickshaw to the hotel was Rs5. Naturally at 3.30am the door was locked but the manager let us in (to the auto-rickshaw man's disgust, because he wanted to take us to ‘his' hotel, the Akhbar Inn).

So here we are in the "Shah Jahan Hotel", sitting on the roof terrace with a good view of the Taj. It's 8am, and we're waiting for breakfast. Our first sight of the Taj was a floodlit arch over the rooftops at 3.30am. As the sky lightened the Taj Mahal proper gradually materialised until at 5.30am it could be seen clearly. We were first in the gate at 6am and from then until 7.30 it was snap! snap! snap!

Need I say that the Taj Mahal is beautiful?

Taj Mahal before dawn

Saturday 3rd October

The names and addresses above are those of four employees of Maruti who contributed to making Agra possibly the easiest of all our destinations (and just as well for me because the food on the train has given me a fairly devastating attack of "Delhi Belly").

We met them when we returned to the Taj at sunset, and they offered to take us to a Hindu festival. After some private deliberation we agreed, and they were greatly pleased. Unfortunately we spent so long in their hotel room (they were on leave from Delhi), drinking beer and gossiping, that we missed the main part of the festival - the burning of an effigy of some god (Raman?) by another (Ram?) symbolising the victory of Truth over Falseness. But when they heard that we were going to see the deserted city of Fatehpur Sikri the next day, they offered to take us in their van, and this they did.

So on Saturday we were their guests. The only things we managed to pay for were some soft drinks and our entrance fee for the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. They took us to the Deserted City (actually just to the mosque) where we saw a 70 year-old man jump from the wall into a deep well of green slime (he's been doing this for 45 years, and was on TV last month, so he's a bit of a celebrity). The boys had us trying betel nut and drinking Kingfisher beer on the way to the Bird Sanctuary. There we found that it was hard to get very close to the birds (especially with all the joking, laughing and shouting going on) but we saw green parrots, cranes, a sort of heron (brownish), a green and brown "gasping bird", and deer. On the way back we called on Dempy's cousin for more soft drinks, and Indian sweets.

Yesterday, Sunday, we slept late, then headed off for the Red Fort. We took a pony and trap to the fort. I climbed up beside the driver, and was momentarily alarmed to find a wooden leg standing on the floor. The driver had only one leg. (Cost was Rs2 each.) The fort is around 400 years old, and has some good views. Shah Jahan was locked up here by his son Aurangezeb for the last 17 years of his life. This at first seems unjust, but when you remember that he had himself had all the hands of the workmen involved in building the Taj chopped off (so they wouldn't be inclined to build another), it seems that he deserved at least a life sentence.

On the way back we saw the Taj again at sunset, and I bought a small marble tile for Seymour and Doreen (Rs115). On return to our hotel Elaine had a pleasant surprise when the manager handed her her blouse, which had been nicked off the line by an errant monkey, stripped of its buttons and left in the mosque next door.

We had tea (for me - 2 pots of hot lemon, and yoghurt with a banana and a lemon) and then collected our train tickets to Varanasi from the manager. He charged us Rs10 each commission for making our reservations, which was money well spent (Tickets were Rs73 each).

We travelled in to Agra Cantt Station by cycle-rickshaw - Rs4 each, 2 in each rickshaw. Very quiet, a lovely way to see things, and the chap taking Mary and Elaine was a bit of a joker, so he kept us amused all the way.

At the station the girls collected their rucksacks while I found our carriage number (on a typed sheet on the noticeboard). A little boy climbed into one of the bunks next to ours, on his way back to school in Lucknow, and his father confirmed what I'd suspected from the loud hissings, smoke etc - that we were being pulled by a steam engine. So I went to sleep happily, and dreamt of steam trains, with the expectation of being able to photograph the engine today.

Unfortunately, during the night it's been transmogrified into a dull diesel. Oh, well.

One other Agra character I forgot to mention. On our way back from the fort we were accosted by a small boy (maybe 8 years old) selling books of postcards. The girls fell for him - he had a very open smile. But no-one wanted to buy his postcards, even when he dropped his price to Rs5. But Cathy wanted a photograph, and she thought Rs1 might be an appropriate token of our esteem. However he refused to take it, saying, "I am selling." When I tried to push the coin into his hand he still refused, and added, "I am no baksheesh." So Cathy finally bought his postcards. What a salesman.