At the moment I'm in an Internet cafe slightly more than a hundred metres from the Taj Mahal. This evening Chris and I will take the short train ride to Delhi. Perhaps it's because I've been mentally prepared by our previous experiences in India, perhaps it's because I haven't yet got ill again, or perhaps the cities we've visited in this country - Agra and Varanasi - have both been fascinating and truly unique places, but the last four days in India have actually been a lot of fun.

The Taj Mahal is something I've wanted to see since I was a child, and having built it up in my mind and made it more or less the last thing we'll do on this trip, I half expected to be disappointed. I wasn't. The Taj is everything it's supposed to be. One thing about India which I admire unreservedly is Moghul architecture, of which this is the pinnacle. Other examples of the Moghul style we've seen - Agra Fort and the Jama Masjid and Red Fort in Delhi - are beautiful buildings in their own right, but what sets the Taj apart is the luscious, translucent off-white colour of the marble. It's also true that the colour of the stone seems to change as the day progresses - it's at its best, perhaps, early in the morning, when the gentle sun and soft mist give it an ephemeral look. During the heat of the day, the Taj itself is dazzlingly white, although the marble is perfectly cool underfoot even in the midday heat. Its brilliant whiteness makes it look like a cool, refreshing dessert sitting under the scorching Indian sun, in the same way as ice cream or lassi cools the mouth after a fiery curry.

It's also beautiful at sunset. Last night we watched the sun set over Agra as we sat at a rooftop restaurant and drank cold Kingfisher beer, which the waiter asked us to keep below a low wall as he didn't have a permit for his premises. Watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal and drinking beer, illegally. India's not that bad after all. Then, as the Taj faded back into the blue-grey smog at the end of the day, half a dozen loudspeakers from the mosques in the city behind us crackled into life, calling Agra's Muslims to their evening prayer and completing the evening's exotic mix for us. Suddenly, I wished we were at the beginning of our travels rather than at the end.

My next challenge, other than surviving Delhi one last time, will be dealing with reverse culture shock: coming back to a cold, expensive country where everything, including me, is boringly normal. I won't pretend that after nearly three months in Asia - and particularly India - I'm not looking forward to going somewhere where you can drink tap water and the trains are only one hour late not ten, but I also know I will miss Asia immensely. I might even find it within me to miss India, although I still can't see myself rushing to come back.

But my blog's not over yet, and my final entry will be from a place where cattle are kept in fields and not allowed to roam the streets. Very odd.