Like the majority of tourists who visit India, the main purpose of our trip was to see the Taj Mahal. We had been planning this trip for a long time but each year we had been put off for one reason or another (like the plague that struck India for example). Last year, however, our quest took on extra urgency following a TV documentary we saw which suggested that the Taj Mahal's days were seriously numbered due to acid rain or, worse still, restoration by unskilled craftsmen. Luckily, apart from some terrorist activity around Kashmir, there seemed no reason to postpone our trip any further.

Our visit to the Taj Mahal was actually on Christmas Day. All of the guide books recommended seeing it at sunrise or sunset (or preferably both!) but our tour was scheduled to visit it after breakfast when the light would already be quite harsh. So we decided to get up early and make our own way there in time for the sunrise - and it was definitely worth it.

It was still dark and quite chilly when we arrived at 6am to join a small group of people which included only one other person from our group. We had to wait almost an hour before there was sufficient light for our cameras. Even though we had already seen many spectacular sites during the first week of our tour, the Taj was still breathtaking and we took quite a few pictures in the changing light of the rising sun.

We went back to the hotel for breakfast but we returned for a closer look with the rest of the group and our local guide (unbelievably, some of the people in our group actually stayed behind to sun themselves by the hotel pool instead of visiting the Taj and missed out on the highlight of the tour!).

Although it was only a couple of hours later when we returned to the Taj, the light was very different. It was very bright with strong shadows and definitely not as good as when we saw it at dawn. Our guide immediately reassured us that the rumours of the building's deterioration were totally unfounded and that it looked as good today as when he first started as a guide 20 years ago. Indeed, when we had a close up look at the detailed craftsmanship and the intricate carved marble inlaid with semiprecious stones, we could see that it was still in immaculate condition - spoilt only by the looting, centuries ago, of the gold, silver and the many jewels that were inlaid in the marble.

The perfect symmetry of the whole structure is astounding, even down to its famous reflection in the pool and the fake mosque built facing away from Mecca solely to balance the real mosque on the other side. The only flaw in this symmetry is, ironically, the tomb of its creator, the Emperor Shah Jehan, who built the Taj Mahal as a memorial to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal - "The Light Of The Palace" - who died in 1631. Her tomb is located in the centre of the mausoleum but when Shah Jehan died his son placed his father's tomb to the side of it. He really ought to have placed another dummy tomb on the other side! Rumour has it that Shah Jehan actually wanted to build an identical structure but in black marble across the river from the Taj and join the two by a bridge. Now that would have been impressive!