Agra to Varanasi

It's been busy since my last post with not much time for sitting down with good wifi!

First, we took a bus to Agra. It was long and painful. The Taj was closed on the Friday so we went to see the Agra Fort, Baby Taj, and watch the sun set on the back of the Taj.

GIANT NAAN in Jaipur

Rooftop bookworm

 After we watched the sun set on the Taj there was a huge pack of goats returning from grazing. They were so cute! All different colours and sizes. I loved them. Some of them even wore shirts or bows on their horns.

 The Agra Fort was very neat. It was made of red sandstone and had a white marble addition. Beautiful inlay and carved marble was all over the place. And the ceilings and walls were painted with natural plant paints, which must have been spectacularly beautiful many years ago. It was amazing that the paints had lasted this long!

Posing at the Agra Fort

See the Taj in the background??

Beautiful marble work in the Agra Fort

Sculpted and Painted ceilings... our fave! 

Vegetable dye paintings

Pretty goat

Taj sunset

Goat parade/stampede

 The next day we went to the Taj. It was very confusing getting our ticket at first, but since we were foreigners we had to buy expensive tickets and skip all the lines. We spent a few hours posing with the Taj from different angles on the grounds and looking at bugs and plants (especially when I got bored with Darwyn's antics).

Eventually we went inside the Taj to see the sarcophagi. The Taj was dedicated to a ruler's wife when she died having her bazillionth child. The inside of the Taj was a horrible place. It was PACKED with people who were all pushing and shoving and it was so hot and noisy. I was so hungry and grumpy by the time we got in there so I really couldn't handle it. I was so glad when it was over and we could eat! Eating is my favourite past time in India.

Agra is not a very nice place to be. In my opinion it would be better to skip it and the Taj altogether. People constantly harass you for tuk tuk rides, money exchange, or to go into their shop. It gets tiring. Lucky for us we were stuck there for 4 days while our train was delayed. Joy to the world!

Our train was delayed about 40 hours due to fog. It even made the newspaper it was so late! The problem is that you can only find out at the station how late the train is, with the boards saying one thing and the enquiry desk saying another. The enquiry desk said a 24 hour delay to Darwyn when he fist asked and a 30 hour delay when I asked 5 minutes later. The board said it would be there in 4 hours, but would post a further delay every couple hours. It was very stressful trusting anything. In the end, we lost a lot of sleep staying late at the station and waking up early to check at the station, 2 nights of accommodation (expensive and not very nice), and probably years of our lives because of the stress...

Taj views

By the Yamuna River

A Taj entrance

Apis dorsata: the giant honey bee! Still need to find a hive..

Taj and hawks

Tiny bee! 

In the end we found out we could get our tickets refunded (no one told us before!!) and we booked a car to Varanasi, which was pretty expensive. The drive took 17 hours through INTENSE fog, a traffic gridlock due to a flipped GIANT truck, and we had to jumpstart the car once halfway through after a chai stop. And the car had no heat and was very cold and draughty. We arrived at 5am, and then found out that our train left 2 hours after we did. So that was a horrible experience.... I guess all part of the India experience. At least we were safe and we made and Australian friend out of it who we have been hanging out with in Varanasi.

And Varanasi is wonderful, another post to follow about it soon!