No need to rush. I strolled from the main entrance through the garden towards the increasingly impressive building. The heat of the day was beginning to warm the cool air but it must already have been hotter than I thought. I expected to be asked to remove my shoes before entering the mausoleum but was told the marble was too hot and would burn my feet. Tender footed tourists like me were offered sack shoe covers.

Looking back across the gardens to the inside of the entrance gate, a grand building in its own right.

This picture doesn't do it justice: the carved marble and inlaid lettering of the Quran. Inside it was too dark for me to take photographs and the my unofficial, self appointed guide was expert in positioning himself to obscure the shots.

I finally shook off the guide, without paying him Rs 25/- , wandered back through the garden along the central canal, and past the team of gardeners who had, in the meantime arrived and begun to manicure and already tidy lawn.

I left the tranquility of the Taj Mahal through the great entrance and crossed the road, passed under an arch way and into a town of narrow, bustling and noisy streets. I don't know its name, but I was back into the real world of  heat, grime, hard work and barely disguised poverty. Within a few feet the splendour of the Taj Mahal had floated off into its separate universe.