Blogs from Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 167

Even though I can’t stand shopping, I had a blast walking from shop after (almost identical) shop around the little Rajasthani town of Pushkar and browsing through fun jewelry and clothes. Each shop had a tailor ready to alter dresses, pants and tops within minutes, or custom make anything within a couple of days!! I also found a pottery place and WENT TO TOWN purchasing the most random things (the list is pretty extensive so I will not make this entry any longer than to say that I am glad I left Pushkar.)(It was a dangerous place to be - even for someone who hates shopping!) I escaped (with a thinner money belt) to a little town called Bundi; not many people know about this place, and that may be why it ranked high on my ... read more

Once again the current city is a totally new experience. The main attraction is the river Ganga, the mother of the hindu people. The city of Shiva rests on the west side of the river and the river bank is covered in concrete ghats (steps down to the river). The various ghats have different purposes such as bathing, cremation grounds, body drop off points, boat landings, shopping, and prayer shrines. The streets of Varanasi are either extremely crowded or extremely narrow. It is very easy to get lost in the winding alleyways, as we have done several times. The city is very fun and there seems to be a hindu shrine or temple every where we look. We also visited the nearby area of Sarnath. This is the place where the Buddha first taught the four ... read more

The city of Agra has turned out to be the most fun yet. Today began with a nice walk to the Agra fort. The fort provided some beautiful views of the very dry Yamuna river and the Taj Mahal in the distance. We then took a peaceful stroll through the Shajahan park which led to the Taj Ganj area in front of the Taj Mahal. We ate lunch on a rooftop restaurant with a wonderful view of the Taj and also were able to watch pigeon trainers at work on the adjacent rooftops. We spent the afternoon exploring the magnificence of the Taj Mahal and stayed until sunset. The detail that went into the construction is insane. We then made our way to a local music shop which provided a free citar show. The citar player ... read more

Well this was the most spectacular and beautiful place on earth (so far at least anyway!) James and I spent ages wandering round the Taj Mahal trying to describe it so we could then let you know what it was like. But we just cannot describe the breath taking beauty and peacefulness of this incredible monument of love. We enjoyed this monument so much we came back again! So we saw the sunset on the 24th Jan and the sunrise at 6.30am on the 25th Jan. Which one was better? Neither they were equally as amazing and we recommended it to an austrailian couple from Perth and they took our advice and went to see it again(we ended up meeting them the next day in Jaipur!). We have included some photos of the Taj Mahal, we ... read more

Sunday night was the sleeper train from Agra to Varanasi, at 8.30pm! For the record... Indian stations are almost as exciting as Indian Cinemas. Straight out of something by Rudyard Kipling, lots of noise, lots of people and general pandemonium. We swaned through it all with porters carrying out luggage on their heads, and cooled our heels for a while on the platform. I bought a bull whip off a trader on the platform, (who gave me a demonstration on it's effective crack pottential), much to the amusement of the rest of the group, and then bought another for Adrian, (which concerned them more I reckon)! Far as I'm concerned it's my best buy so far! I never expected the sleeping car to be overly luxurious, but apparently everyone else did! Recently there have been a ... read more