HELLO!! :) hope you're all doin alrighty! we made it out of mumbai and travelled through delhi and are now up north in Agra....home of the Taj Mahal. we got the plane to delhi, it was so strange flying out of mumbai to see all of the slums, they take up so much of the city, and they're planning to demolish them, but i dont think they have a plan for all the people. we survived our first experience on an Indian train (just) the seat numbers we had actually had been turned into some cupboard!luckily everyone was nice to us and this family let us squish in with them haha! again we arrived at night...the hotel we booked looked a bit funny...to get in to look at our room we had to come in a tuktuk( we swore we'd never get in one again but cars arent allowed this close to the taj cos of pollution) so got in one..it was raining and it didnt have windscreen wipers so the driver couldnt see anything!! there was a huge lorry that had crashed into a lamp post left in the middle of the road too! so when we arrived to get to see the room i had to duck under some scaffolding type building site stuff, go back outside down a lane past some people houses, a goat and some donkeys and up and 4 flights of steps!! i was so tired and confused by the time i was at the top i couldnt be bothered to check the room properly!it happens to be fine....and we have a real good view of the taj mahal!!!!!! (plus we eat breakfast on the rooftop restaurant..along with a billion flies) unfortunately the taj is cloed on a fri so went and saw some other sights. this too is another crazy indian city...so many poor people then this huge great big expensive marble thing in the middle of it all. there are people hassling us left right and centre...some are nice...every other person asks where we're from (and never believes that zan is from england) and they always want pictures with us, the ones that sont ask all that either want to sell us something, be your tour guide or beg from us!! you get a bit used to it tho. we've got 2 blokes that take us everywhere in their little tuktuk. the only good thing about the taj is that it brings in lots of tourists and work for people. outside our hotel is the most mayhem ever...there are goats,dogs, children, cows, horses, donkeys, people, bikes, rickshaws,horse and carts, tuktuks, stalls, people carrying stuff on their heads and pulling carts...and no kind of system for any of it!! all of the transport just goes everywhere and the animals are wandering everywhere...i can hardly look when we're in the tuktuk!! went to agra fort which was nice and did a bit of shopping then went to the baby taj....where we were mobbed by children(then their families_ they were obsessed with having their pictures taken then lookin at themselves! so it took quite a while to get away from them! they were v cute tho! then we went on the river side of the taj to tak some pics as the sun set...again surrounded by kids and people asking us all the usual questions. some kids took it upon themsleves to be our tour guides (we didnt get much choice in the matter haha) they made us take loads of photos especially ones of us holding the top of the taj! the kids ate all our mentos and i ended up giving away loads of money that day cos theres a shortage of coins so was giving out loads of notes eek! we went to the taj today!! and went inside...it was an absolute mission to get in (wont go into that..boring) but great once we got in.so many people wanted pics of us..we were so hot and bothered i started saying no to older people etc but how can you say no to children!?!! we then went to a five star hotel for lunch (mums got us into the finer things in life) it was so lush but a bit surreal coming from the busyness and poorness from outside into that, where they give you a cold flannel when you arrive, when everyone outside looks so thin (including all the animals) we bought a little tuktuk man a cake cos hes from rajistan and doesnt see his family very much cos he works here ....a guy we met summed india up quite well, he said it was the place he loved and hated the most...he was also a bit sick of trying to get some sense out of someone too! everything is made so complicated here haha!! the journeys in the tuk tuk make me feel quite sick cos of all the animals and people you see so sometimes i just have to shut my eyes or i just might cry...cant really explain it til you see it. so the way me and zan are going to try to help, is we're spending money like theres no tomorrow!!so tomorrow we're off to delhi and then down to kerala in a few days, we're hoping that we'll be getting some fresher air down there, cos it smells either like food/mostly pollution/or like a gross sewage smell. so i'll be off to the room...past the houses, goats, donkeys and building site hahaha!!