Agra, at last

I got to Agra after 17 hours on the train. I booked my ticket for Jaipur for tomorrow morning and today I am wondering around Taj Mahal. Now it is closed for lunch break and will re-open at 4 pm. Taj Mahal is as beautiful as the pictures show. The main building - the mausoleum made of white marble inlaid with stone of other colors - is really, indeed, an example of perfect balance. From the distance it looks beautiful, with the narrow pools with shallow water leading to it, and from up-close it is equally enchanting. I will have to find more information on it. I read some bits and pieces about it but my knowledge is fragementary (and I don't want to use a guide because I never do - their monotonous voice put me to sleep the few times I used a guide before in such places). The grounds are nicely kept - the surrounding garden consists of grass and some interesting shrubs and trees. Behind Taj Mahal flows a river but it is very badly polluted, like all rivers in India, I heard. I had breakfast in the morning at a restaurant close to Taj Mahal and observed the monkeys which are running everywhere in the city. It is amazing to me how their movements are similar to human movements. It's incredible. When I see a dog anywhere I talk to it and some of them respond and some don't but they respond in a "dog" way. The "monkey" way is so like human that it's almost freightening. I was sitting at a table and a monkey was outside, behind the glass window. I looked at her and pointed at her with my finger: "Hey you, how are you?" She looked me and then around herself: "You mean me?" said her eyes. "Yes, you." She scrathed her head, didn't know what to say, looked a bit embarassed by my attention, and slowly withdrew... In Kathmandu I went with Sanjeev to a park on the outskirts of the city. Sanjeev wanted to take a walk to the pond with fish and I decided to take a nap on the bench. Between my head and the bench I put a box of cookies. Just as Sanjeev was leaving a group of monkeys came and one of them quietly and skillfully, without touching me, took the cookies away. And then she, and all other monkeys started screaming and "laughing": "We got it! She didn't even notice it!" But at that time I did, and so did Sanjeev and a group of people passing by. We were looking at the "thief" how he opened the box carefully and took out the cookies one by one, from the first row of cookies, and ate them. Then they all left and Sanjeev told me that the thief would eat first and then share the rest with the other monkeys. Having all these monkeys around is like having another "type" of humans around. It's hard to treat them like animals because they so resemble us. Especially when mothers take care of their kids, play with them, breast-feed them. .. More about fauna and flora of India soon. I am going to go back to Taj Mahal and enjoy it's beauty until the sunset.