Taj Mahal / Varanasi

I woke up in Agra to find the bus had stopped i looked into the isle and i was the only person left on board. I quickly jumped off the bus to find my ruck sack standing alone at the back of the bus. Were they trying to lose my baggage for me!
After getting to the hotel i went to the roof top resturant. u can c the taj from here. What a building e3ven from a distance. After i had eaten i took a long walk around Agra. This city is a mess, power cables run everywhere like giant tangled cob webs. Rubbish is piled high in the streets, i9n 1 place a man and a pig r shuffling through it searching for food and in another it is ablaze sending noxious gases in to every1s lungs. I turned down a street to avoid the fumes and that street looked like a slaughter house blood trikled into the street from every body part andf organ of the bffelo. It caught me off gaurd and i started to feel a bit sick with the swarms of flys feasting on any exposed flesh. This place dosent deserve the taj. That might be a bit judgemental and i suppose extreme opposites likes this make each other all the more beutiful ort repulsive.
The next morning i woke up at 5 to see the taj at sunrise and as it rose over this magnificent building it turned from grey to orange to yellow to white. man made structure can be beautiful but in my opinion no arcitecture i have seen has rivaled the beauty of mother nature but the taj with its symmetry, majestic lines, in layed precious stones and interact carvings. Afamous indian poet described the taj as a tear drop on the face of eternity and i dont think there is a better way of putting this creation into words. I thought in my heart that the taj would be smaller that it was and generally an anti climax like so many of these sights can be but how wrong i was.
After 2 days i left Agra and the taj behind me for Varanasi with 2 spanish guys i had been drinking with. The train ride was good the Indians where friendly as always offering round any food they had and laughing and joking about how india had beaten england for the 3rd time in the cricket.When we got toi Varanasi the Spainish guys werent very impressed with the 100 rupees a night slum i had chosen and we wnet our seperate ways.
Varanasi is not what i was expected, a very modern city until u get to the ganges where it all changes. I spent a lot of my ti9me on the river bank absorbing the spiritual feeling in the air or is it in the water.
The burning ghats r a really unusual place to be, it really is like a crossingpoint between this plain and there heaven and hell. Because in 1 way the contourted bodies of the burning petrude from the fires with flames licking there faces and in the river dead babies float by. Due the a number of circumstances like being under 12 or being bitten by a snake etc etc, mean u dont get cremated before u get given back to the mother ganges. then on the other hand no 1 cries there is no sadness aand music blasts out of speakers everywhere giving an upbeat feeling, decorations hang from most places like there is a never ending festival. That is the feeling i get from people, this is a celebration of life. Varanasi made me believe even less in the concept of heaven and hell because they r both around us in the world we live in and varanasi deffinatly has its far share.
I met a couple of indian guys in varanasi and we spent a couple of nights drinking rum or wine as they call it in a seedy prison cell like bar. As far as i can tell indian guys have such a bad impression of western girls because the media portrays them as more open than up tight indian women who r chained by the restraints of religion. As we left the the bar we went to a stall selling boiled eggs with bits of chilly and onions on top and wolfed down 3 or 4. What a bad mistake i thought they might make me ill but little was i to know just how ill and i only had 2 days to go to do the 26 hour bus to Kathmandu to meet rob.

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