Well, you can't say we weren't warned about the trials and tribulations of travelling in India, but it still really surprised us!

Ugh, we arrived in New Delhi from Bangkok in the early afternoon. It was cold when we arrived, we needed jackets and extra fleece, a far change from the warm weather in Bangkok. The sky was grey, overcast and depressing. The poverty is really right in front of you, with people all over the place, just scrapping by in the streets. We had arranged for our (budget) hotel to meet us at the airport and get us back to the hotel, which worked fine, except the hotel was not really that great. Actually, it was terrible. A cold concrete walk up, all open to the outside, no hot water (promised), toilet up a set of open stairs, constant sales for tours, etc and no heat, which we really needed because it was cold. Needless to say, it was a miserable night.

The next day, we changed hotels to a more mid range one, one with heat, a toilet and hot water (in the room!) and settled in to try and find our way around. The amount of noise and dirt and street activity was really overwhelming. We looked like walking meal tickets and were treated as such. Everyone badgering us for whatever they had for sale. We actually slept for almost one whole day, just trying to get ourselves together. After three days, we managed to get tickets on a night train to Varanassi (without anyone's help, which we were very proud of) and a very bad tour by auto -rickshaw (which is another whole story together).

The night train to Varanassi was supposed to leave at 8:40 but was delayed for four hours. While waiting, we met Mario, a traveller from Germany who suggested we get some beers while waiting for the train. We set off from the train station, braved rows of auto-rickshaw drivers and had a good beer or two with him. The night train was great, got more sleep than we anticpated and we were glad we paid for second class--which is fairly clean and quiet. We also met Neal, a traveller on sabattical from a teaching job in Seattle.

Arriving in Varanassi, the four of us banded together to get a auto-rickshaw from the train station to our guest house. Our driver had other ideas for us and after dropping Neal and Mario off at their hotel took us to one he "recommended"--even though we firmly told him which one we wanted to go to. Finally, we arrived at our guest house and the driver demands twice what we agreed to. Robin was just furious and we refused to pay the driver, just on principle. After watching the discussion and Robin's reaction, the guest house owner gave us a bit of a preachy lecture about how to be firm and not let people rattle you. We kept that in mind.

Varanassi was really cool. Cows in the street, well, pretty much life in the street. Color, dust, noise. Everything. We saw the Ganges, alive with people at all hours of the day, fishing, bathing, holding ceremonies. The City is organized by Ghats, or points where the River meets the City. We took a pre-dawn row boat along the River, we saw people bathing, drinking and doing laundry. Farther down the River, we saw the burning Ghats, where people were being cremated out in the open. Whew. Its a lot of life, really close to you, nothing is hidden.

By this time, we still hated India, but saw maybe, a small pinhole of light at the end of the dark tunnel. We decided that to make our life easier, we would hire a car and a driver in Agra to take us around to several cities in Rajastan for a total of seven days. It would be more expensive than we would pay on our own, but it would be much easier than arranging all the train and bus, hotel and day tours ourselves.

We left Varanassi on another night train, bound for Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and little else. We were only able to obtain a sleeper class ticket, which is six people to an open car, no heat, no bedding and the warning from our guest house owner was "Sleep in shifts, don't eat any food anyone gives you, lock your bags." Needless, to say, we slept little, the car was open and it was cold. Another cold sleepless night in India.

When we arrived in Agra, three hours late, our driver was waiting for us with a nice sign with our names on it. We were escorted to his car, a white Ambassador, (think old car, but kinda cool). Ah, we said, nothing to worry about now....

WRONG. The driver said that he would take us to the Red Fort, but that the Taj was closed. Funny, ha, ha. Lots of jokes about people being told that something is closed, so very funny. No really, we come to find out that our travel agent had booked us in Agra for the day on Friday, the day that the Taj Mahal is CLOSED. We were outraged because he should have known better. We called the travel agent and demanded that he find us a hotel in Agra and change our remaining hotel nights one day ahead, so we could see the Taj on Saturday morning before heading to Jaipur, at no charge to us. He agreed and we saw the Taj on Saturday morning. It was really, really cool and worth it.

Now we are in Jaipur, and are staying in a former Palace. Maybe things are looking up....!

PS: No photos yet, sorry. Internet connection is most unstable. We'll try to get some up soon.