Ranthambore to Varanasi

Hello Everyone! It's Jenny here live from Rishikesh!

I know I know, you have all been longing to know what we have been up to during the past month, so i'll try and resume:

We left Ranthombore, it's national park, and the proximity of Sher Khan to head for Agra, the city of the romantic Taj Mahal on monday the 5th of Feb. There we, obviously, visited the Taj, which i have to say eventhough it's the cliche visit, it is an amazing building, and something to see. We got a guide there, that was paid by our tour company, to tell us the stories behind it, which i won't bore you with, we're not here to give you a lecture on Indian and Mughlai history, but it was build by one of the Rajs for his dead wife that he was so desperatly in love with... The poor wife though, had to wait about 30 years to get her "toomb" (sorry for the spelling) to be ready and was buried, and re buried 3 times!! talk about laying in peace hey!?

Anyway, we also visited an other fort, and again, got the history of all the different rooms... Funny enough, we've kind of slowed down on the sight seeing since we've finished our tour, maybe a bit of an overdose of information! After the visit, the driver took us to a marble engraving place, where the workers showed us their art, and i have to say, the precision of it is quite amazing, especially when you come from visiting the taj that is full of all this precise work... Wow... It was a shop, so obviously they took us also around the store to show us their collection, saying that everything, from garden table to plates could get shipped to our home country. Well, no offence, the taj is beautiful, but i don't want my house to look like it!

We left for Varanasi that evening (Tuesday) and took our first train! It was all very exciting. We had about 6 hours wait at the station, so we just hung around, having people come at us with the usual questions, just happy to have a westerner to talk to, and to show off their english skills haha..

In the evening suddenly, the station fills up with loads of noise, kind of like rain hitting the roof. I only realised when i got back on the the platform that there were about 10000 pidgeons and all sorts of birds, and it turned out it was their house for the night! just walking out of the waiting room was a mission, trying to avoid the bombs the pidgeons were throwing down!! (if you see what i mean!) It was crazy, they were everywhere.

We spent the night in the train, and almost mised our stop, thinking we were scheduled to arrive in Varanasi at 11am, and not 8.30!!! Some train people woke us up, and as we got our, heavy eyelids, looking slowly for a Chai man (they shout "Chai Chai Chai" along all the trains'carriages) we got surrounded by 10 rickshaw and cab drivers... Only one thing to do: An Auction sale. So here i am, pointing at them, guetting the cheapest deal to get to the center of town. it was very funny, and we got good price my friend! Indeed, very good price, a bit less more than a pound to do about 20 kms cause the main bridge of the town was closed, so there was a "small" detour. A very bumpy ride.

The rickshaws are like roller coasters, you know it's supposed to be safe because everybody takes them, but you can't help but wondering when this little 3 wheeled piece of junk decorated with all the gods and goddessesever thought of is going to : either crash into an other; or simply collapse on the side due to the recklessness of the man behind the wheel, who thinks he's some kind of rally driver... Anyway, it's always an adventure!

Varanasi was supposed to be very hard for newly arrived travellers like us, but, funny enough, wether it's because we were so glad to be by ourselves finally, or if it just wasn't as hard as it was supposed to, we loved it. We found a little guest house on the ghats (benks of the "Holy Ganga"=. Our room had a little balcony on which we spent most evenings, watching the fog come up the sides of the river, listening to dogs howling, watching the boats go by, packed with sadus singing away... And most of our days we spent walking slowly along the river, we witnessed a few ceremonies at the burning ghats (indian crematorium), walked along the tiny streets packed with little shops, silk and pachmiri sellers (good salesmen, again) and just enjoy our newly acquired freedom. We stayed about 5 days, and left on the 6th.

The great thing about our trip, is that we donºt have an itinary, so when we were faced with having to take a decision, we opened our little guide book and said, OK, what regions are around us? And we went for Madhia Pradesh.

To be continued!!!...