Day 104 Thursday 14 December, Lucknow to Agra, India

From Lucknow it's an easy drive to Agra along the Great Trunk Road which is dual carriageway for most part, (although you can still choose which side you want to drive down). All goes well until we get stuck in a queue at a level crossing. Passing hundreds of lined up trucks it appears that they have been there for some time, and after 5 more trains pass we begin to get a bit frustrated. Apparently the barriers broken and as it's a busy line they don’t want to put them up in case they won't go down again. After an hour and as tempers get a bit frayed and people start crowding round our car, the car in front does a u-turn and signals us to follow. We weave back thru the trucks which by now completely fill the road, and dive down a little lane into a field. Led by the black Skoda (a very upmarket car in India) we drive along tiny brick roads around rice paddies, thru tiny villages and lanes, past peacocks grazing in the trees and eventually as the sun is setting find a relatively main road. The Skoda careers along and we have difficulty keeping up but fortunately it has a very competent Delhi driver and strong headlights (we should have got the xenon ones after all) and finds all the bumps, cows and goats on the road before we do. After about 90kms we reach Agra where our new friends direct us to the Sheraton (we’ve had enough of LP’s budget recommendations) which we’d booked over the internet. Unfortunately it transpired we’d (well someone) had booked it for the day before but restoring our faith in Indian hotel managers they find us two rooms.