Hello From Rishikesh

We spent four nights in Udaipur, supposedly India's most romantic city, but more importantly, the place where parts of 'Octop**** were shot. Hence most cafes and hostels have a screening of the film.... every night! It's a beautiful place surrounding Lake Pichola and our favourite so far. It was great to just chill there and watch the world go by, we were in a cafe one day having a coffee when an elephant walked down the street.

On Tuesday we got the sleeper train to Agra (12 hours), there was nowhere to put our bags so we had to sleep with them, which was cosy! We actually got a good night's sleep, it was fun to wake up in a different place, even though Agra is a complete hole.

We visited Agra fort on Tuesday afternoon and had our first experience of Agra touts, the most annoying yet! We also, however, got our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal over the Yamuna river. We visited the Taj the next morning, we got there early to avoid the big crowds, and it didn't disappoint, although the weather was a bit overcast it still looked stunning. We took about 1000 photos of it - hahaha! After the Taj we took in a few of the other sights of Agra, including Itimad-Ud-Daulah, the Baby Taj!

The next day we got a train from Agra to Delhi where unfortuantely we had to stay the night, then yesterday morning we got an early train to Haridwar, from there it was just a very bumpy bus journey to Rishikesh. It's really nice to be here, it's much calmer than Agra!

From here we're getting the bus back to Delhi through Monday night, then we're getting a flight from Delhi to Varanasi on Tuesday with none other than.... Spice Jet! Varanasi is going to be our last place in India before we travel up to Kathmandu to join the trek - this time next week!

G & K