Wednesday 21 March 2007

North India completed

I've been so busy I haven't had time to write this blog for ages!! Probably should fill it with what I spent some of the last two weeks doing...
After Pushkar Sara and I set off to Dehli, via a night bus... it was a joy!!...but we got there in one piece. We arrived at 4am and caught an auto to a cafe where we sat playing canasta and drinking cup after cup of chai (indian tea, a dozen cups each!!) until it was late enough to call on a contact we had in Dehli to drop our stuff off. Spent the day sight seeing and went to a mosque in the evening. A friend had told us there was this place where they sang and the atmosphere was buzzing and we just had to visit it, he forgot to mention it was a mosque. The next day we took a local bus to Agra, we are such cheapskates!! The tourist bus would have got there quicker but it would probably have cost 100 extra rupees (1.20 pounds), it's very strange thinking in Indian rupees! I agree over 5 or 10 rupees (6-15p) when I wouldn't even notice if I lost that much in England.
We spent the evening in the poshest hotel I have ever seen, let alone been in. It had gold on the walls and ceilings, smart waiters and doormen who bowed, the cleanest toilets in the whole of India (after 2 months of terrible toilets I was scared to use them!) and a view over the taj mahal which was just unbeatable. We watched the sunset from the balcony drinking expensive cocktails and eating the free nibbles (that they replaced as soon as we finished each bowl, 4 bowls in total!). Then left to find a hotel for one two-hundreth of the price!
Sunrise at the Taj Mahal the next morning (of course!) was amazing. We tagged along with someone else's tour for the tombs and wandered leisurely around the rest. Took far too many photos and were in far too many photos (random Indian and Chinese tourists kept asking to take our photo, as if the taj wasn't enough!). But you know the taj is amazing so I wont try and put it into words.
Back to Dehli and we flew from the airport. Me to Bangalore and Sara eventually got to Vietnam.
I had some time in Bangalore and now I'm in Varkala, Kerela again, and off to have an Ayurvedic massage on a cliff overlooking a stunning beach!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Clare haven't e-mailed you in a while, hows it going? sounds like your having an awesome time? When do you go to Uganda? Glad to see you are spreading the gospel of canasta (Kinasta maybe). I'm on Easter holidays at the mo which is kinda nice, finished placement which went really well. Not a whole lot of interesting things to tell you from here. tell me about your friends what are they like? love alex x