A weekend in India
My second visit to India, and this time the mission was clear: see the Taj Mahal. I'd missed it during my 2016 visit, and it had been on my mind ever since. A quick weekend trip from Nepal was just enough to tick that box - though I was in such a hurry I only managed a single panorama of Delhi!
India is overwhelming by any measure. 1.4 billion people, 22 official languages, thousands of years of history, and a pace of change that's reshaping the global economy. Every visit reveals just how little you've scratched the surface. The scale is simply incomprehensible.
What I Experienced
The Taj Mahal at sunrise lives up to every superlative you've heard. Shah Jahan's monument to his wife Mumtaz is genuinely one of the most beautiful structures ever built. The white marble seems to glow in the early morning light, and the symmetry is almost impossibly perfect. I understood why it draws 8 million visitors annually.
Agra itself is chaotic - a typical North Indian city with all the noise, crowds, and sensory overload that implies. But the contrast makes the Taj even more striking. Step through the entrance gate and suddenly you're in a garden of perfect calm.
Delhi was a blur this time - just passing through. But even a quick transit reveals the contradictions of modern India: ancient monuments next to gleaming metro stations, extreme poverty alongside explosive growth. It's a country that demands more time than I could give it this trip.
Practical Notes
- Indian Rupee is the currency
- Taj Mahal entrance fee is ~1,100 INR (~$15) for foreigners - arrive at dawn
- Delhi to Agra is about 3-4 hours by car or express train
- Prepare for aggressive touts near tourist sites
- The heat can be brutal - bring water and sun protection
India keeps pulling me back. Two visits and I've barely seen anything. The country is simply too big, too diverse, and too complex to ever fully know.
Aerial photography from India is available for purchase with commercial license - perfect for South Asian travel marketing, heritage destination content, or cultural landscape wall art.