Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Aye up kids, whats new?
Today we were up at 5am, yes that's 5am!! To go and see the Taj Mahal, which is just 200 m from where we are staying. Of course we did'nt get there until 6.30am as its difficult travelling anywhere in India without a god stomach purge!!
anyway, we saw the Taj last night from a rooftop of a little restauarant which I thought would detract from seeing it today, but not at all, it was even more impressive! You can marvel at this monolith of love from all angles, it deppreciates not!!
Kim went off on her tod yesterday with a nice young fellow with a tuk-tuk, to show her his sights - of his city.
She saw Agra Fort and the Taj from the other side of the river, bought some postcards, and had a cup of chai with a carpet salesman.
Kim said "she had a jolly nice day."
She also had bad sunburn.
I stayed in bed suffering three consecutive migraines - not good.
We have'nt just been in Agra you know. We started off in Mumbai, but we did'nt see too much of it due to being scared of the locals! Being a westerner in India, is how I'd imagine it would be like for the fist ever woman to walk into a working mens club in the 1950's. You are persistantly stared at, very few folk smile at you, and if your a western woman its worse, every guy, whatever age, is undressing you with his eyes - so really its just like a Friday night round England but you wear a lot less clothes back home!
Mumbai was'nt all bad though, on our first full day we ended up as extra's in a Bollywood movie, no BOLLYWOOD not Hollywood... I'm the 7th person in the queue for some grub on a cruise ship, and Kim is the 8th person, as I'm obviously the bigger talent. The film is called Me, U Aur Um and its released in the future - ch-ch-check it out or alternatively me and Kim will come round and bore you with it ( if we make the final cut!)
We left Mumbai a few days later and remembered we'd also left out sanity in the guesthouse, nevermind - you don't need it in India!
We jumped on a train and headed to Aurangabad to use as a base to visit Ellorra and Ajanta caves. Ellora caves are very impressive, very old and cut out of volcanic rock - I'll let the photos do the talking - whenever we put them up!! As for Ajanta, we could not be bothered - due to incessant hassle from folk we had to escape to somewhere quiet! Though we did visit a very impressive fort that was supposed to be the new Delhi, until they ran out of water, then the King died and so everyone returned to Delhi. Again carved out of a mountain - gotta be seen to believed!
Next Jalgaon. From Aurangabad we took a private luxury coach to Jalgaon. The only luxury about it though was the fact we arrived at our destination alive - there were some pretty close calls - I would'nt say my life flashed before my eyes but I did flashback to soiling my first nappy or did that actually happen during the journey?!
Sorry for all the toilet humour but when your India, you can't even pass gas without having to go to the bathroom for a quick wipe!!
Which brings me to the smells. In India there are two smells, curry and poo - this may seem a bit harsh - ok, theres a third, car fumes.
Which brings me onto noise, it seems to be "de riguer" to keep your hand on the horn permanently whilst driving regardless of time of day or situation. I' suprised vehicle manufacturers don't add a feature where upon ignition, the engine and the horn, both start and remain on until the driver turns off the ignition!
From Jalgaon we took an 18hour sleeper train to Agra. During the night, Kim awoke after a chap touched her bum, the guy, we shall call "perv wallah" promptly "did one".
Anyway, here we are in Agra and its very nice, people are nice, no traffic or horns to be heard, cow's, goats, elephants, water buffalo, donkeys and camels all walk through the streets - usually unattend (the outrage!). And monkeys - hundreds of the b*****s! - jump from rooftop to rooftop day and night!
I am now beginning to warm to India.
- comments