Nothing Delhicate about this town

The heat has not abated, but I am feeling much better about India now. I've had a few days to get used to the weather, I've perfected my stern 'no thank you', aimed at touts and those asking for money (though I'm a sucker for a woman with a baby), and I am no longer so paranoid about getting sick.

We made it to Agra after a difficult moment at the Varanasi train station in which I apparently made a baby poo its pants by smiling at it. The mother then started having a go at me, with everyone else watching on, and I seriously thought she was going to put the soiled pants on me or my backpack as she walked away. Anyway, of course we saw the famed Taj Mahal and it was a beauty! Just as spectacular as I had hoped. We had a guide who knew '89 special areas to take photos from'. So we posed our way around the Taj. The 'family' photo is my favourite - our guide put this pose together himself:

Apparently Bill Clinton has also sat on this seat. I have many, many other (better) Taj images, if anyone is interested, but lets face it, we've all seen the photos. In real life though, it was really something else.

We had a good tour around Agra, visiting the Red Fort and Baby Taj, and our touk-touk driver managing to take us to only three shops to try and sell us local handicrafts. Not too bad I thought, but Tom was starting to lose it. Fortunately, it was time to hop on the train for Delhi.

We rode a sweaty three hours packed into a local train, and arrived in New Delhi at midnight. Our hotel is near the train station, and, as we walked down the dark, muddy road, we thought we had entered a war zone. Fortunately we found our hotel, and the next day we realised that there is major construction going on in Delhi for the Commonwealth Games. There is a lot of work still to be done if its going to be finished in time, that's for sure.

We've been having a nice time kicking around Delhi, enjoying the delhicious food, and visiting places out of the heat. Tomorrow we head to Udaipur for a couple of days.

The road to Kathmandu... and beyond

We are currently in Varanasi, India, but soon heading to Agra for a glimpse of the Taj Mahal. Lets face it, I'm struggling against my arch nemesis. I'd say currently, its India 1; Catie 0. The reason for this is that it has been 40 degrees during the day, and only down to 30 during the night, which does not make for easy sleeping. Still there have been nice things so far - we have done a couple of yoga classes, yesterday I saw a 1 day-old baby goat, and there are lots of buffalo about that swim in the Ganges, and then just sit in the street. It's been nice walking next to the Ganges, though only at times, as mainly we are just pestered by touts. Nothing would induce me to actually swim in it though. Gross!

Anyway, I never told the China - Nepal border crossing story. So after our guide dropped us off on the China side, we walked across the Friendship Bridge into Nepal. The plan was that we would pay to hire a car and driver to take us to Kathmandu. But after going through immigration, we were approached by a man who told us that there was a landslide down the road, preventing cars getting through to Kathmandu. He could take us to the landslide for an exorbitant amount, where we would then be able to get a car to K'du.

Well of course, being the seasoned and sceptical travellers that we are, we didn't believe him. So we started asking around, and it did indeed seem true that there was a landslide 25 kms down the road, blocking all traffic. We tried to make friends with a French tour group, given we didn't really know what to do. After a while we thought we would find out what was happening with the local buses, so we started walking down the hill to the bus station. When we arrived there, it turned out that the tour guide of the French group had hired a bus to the landslide - so he invited us onboard! Woohoo!

Many a time over those 25 kms did I expect the bus to go over the side of the cliff. But somehow it made it in one piece to the landslide, which was just being cleared as we arrived. We walked through the mud to the other side. Our French friends hopped on their private bus which was waiting for them, and headed off to K'du. We were alone.

But some local kids asked us where we wanted to go, and started stopping traffic to try and get us a lift. A man in a van stopped for us, so we threw (well heaved) our bags onto the top of his van and squeezed into the front seat with him. I was quite happy with this arrangement though, because he seemed to be the first safe driver that I had encountered in a couple of months, actually braking around corners.

However, our driver was slightly suspicious - he was stopped at every police checkpoint (and there were many) - and on several occasions, he slipped the policeman that stopped us some money. He also had to meet people a couple of times so that he could do something with his licence. This all meant that we were very slow in getting to Kathmandu. But in the end we did get there. Our driver made us get a taxi the final 1km to our hotel (why, we do not know), but we were there! Phew! We had quite a nice time in Kathmandu, seeing a few key attractions - I loved the monkey temple - and sorting out our India leg. We also had some really delicious Italian food! From Kathmandu we flew to Varanasi, where I now sit.

Well, better see about this train to Agra!