Blogs from Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 80

Well helllloooooooooooooo....... I wasn't expecting us to have a new travelblog so soon after our last, but here we are. We have just spent five days in Delhi and Agra and have taken so many photos that we decided that we would share some with you. One thing I can tell you is that both Delhi and Agra were complete chaos - just on different levels. Delhi has around 10 million people living there whilst Agra has around 1 million. However, they are both jungles of people, dogs, cows, flies and smells - which are quite often pretty nasty. Both are made up of buildings which have no rhyme or reason and seem to be crumbling at the seams. In complete contrast, both have spots which can only be defined as havens in a world of ... read more

Namaste (-- that means hello in hindi) Greetings from Agra! After much anticipation...we have just returned from the Taj Mahal! The experience was grand! Eveywhere we go we are treated like movie stars...children come to greet us...people want their photos taken with us...it is all a bit surreal. The Taj was splendid and although I we are only able to see the grand monument once (Kristi tragically we are only able to see the Taj in the late afternoon before we depart early tomorrow morning, but thanks for all your grand suggestions!) the event is one I am sure I shall never forget. I know both Owen and Marie will never forget their visit to the Taj, as Owen proposed to Marie and she accepted! Tonight we will all celebrate. A very happy and romantic occassion! ... read more

Hi everyone, Now that you have recovered from week one, here goes week two!!! We hopped onto the tour bus, this time towards Agra, noted for its Forts and Palaces, but most famous for the Taj Mahal. En-route we stopped at a Bird sanctuary 'Kheoladeo Ghana'. it was beautiful & peaceful, we had hoped to see an abundence of birds & wildlife, but as it was explained, there had been insufficent rainfall so most have the creatures had migrate or were still in hibernation. It took a keen eye to see what wildlife there was remaining and fortunatly, we had a very good guide. If we had been here after the rainy season, the view and experience would have been very different. Most of the land would have been submerged in water and we would have ... read more

Upon arrival in Delhi I felt reasonably well equipped to deal with the inevitable scams and touts that are par for the course in this part of the world, having absorbed lots of advice from fellow travelers that had already visited India. Straight away the taxi journey from the airport into the city provided me with an introduction to this aspect of travel in India, as even though I'd pre-paid for my taxi from an official booth the driver and his mate in the front seat still refused to take me straight to my destination and wanted me to check out his "friends" travel agent that could easily sort out my onwards tickets!! (sound familiar anyone whose visited India?). Anyway after 15 minutes of discussion and me trying to explain that I hadn't just got off ... read more

Fatehpur Sikri is only 37 km away from Agra, so we thought the bus ride would be no problem. Far from that! We had to take a minibus, there was no other means of public transport available. Our luggage was safely stored in a separate compartment and when we got in and took our seats, we knew why: there was absolutely no space inside. Mind you, the seats were so small that even Klaudia’s knees touched the back of the front seat, and she really isn’t very tall. Stephan called it a shrunk bus and was wondering whether we were not riding on a recycled school bus. This trip was the most uncomfortable one so far, the streets inside Agra were so full of potholes that you could no longer see any tar and are a ... read more