Blogs from Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 164

Before I came to India I decided that no matter what, even if I hate it enough to run away after one day, there’s one place I won’t miss: The Taj Mahal. The day came, we took an organized tour, woke up before 6AM to get on the way (200km, this time only 4 hours because the roads are good :-), and went to visit Agra, the city of Taj. The first site we visited was Sikandra - the tomb of Akbar, one of the emperors of this part of India in the past (in the Mughal period, if you really wanted to know). The gate building is very impressive with 4 towers on top, more impressive than the tomb building inside. Inside the tomb building it’s not well preserved, but you can see remnants of ... read more

Hopped a train on my birthday from Delhi—disgusting, dirty, marvelous Delhi—to see the great pearl of India in Agra, none other than the Taj Mahal. But with the glut of tourists that the Taj brings, so come the touts and the beggars and the salesmen. Basically everyone wants to be your friend; “No buy, only look”, and they are relentless. I’ve only been here for a short time, but I’m beginning to adapt to the constant wrangling, propositioning, and bargaining that goes along with being a Westerner in India. It’s quite difficult though, and you are really forced to be firm with the people who are constantly asking you for handouts. Really, no matter how hard I try, I still get ripped off consistently and sometimes legitimately. I’ll just say there is some definite price discrimination ... read more

On our way to India, we stopped at Lumbini, the supposed birth place of Buddha. Then, for some reason, we decided to purchase bus tickets and train tickets for India on the Nepal side of the border. Not sure what I was thinking, but as you can imagine, once we finally made it into India, we got scammed and had to pay an additional $6 to get our tickets. To make matters worse, it was very hot, our bags were heavy, the bus was packed with people and it took 3 house to get to the train station. Tired, ticked off and hot, we then had to board a 12-hour overnight train to Varanasi. Needless to say, I was very uncomfortable and did not sleep on the train. Upon arriving in Varanasi, I was blown away ... read more

Hello again:-D After yesterday's craziness, I figured that for my well-being physically and mentally/emotionally, I better stay somewhere nice, pronto. Air conditioning was mandatory and that is only guaranteed, from what the gentleman at my old hotel told me, at two places: The Taj and Clarks. I ended up at Clarks, after a long-ride of yet another driver trying to take me to a "cheaper and better" hotel. He then wanted to be my driver for the day, which I declined, and he was very upset that I didn't want to make use of the half-day of shopping Clarks had included in the price of my room, since he knew the best shops for the highest quality and lowest prices. Of course. Just like everyone. You know, I don't mean to come off as jaded in ... read more

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