To met up with our group in Delhi we had to change hotels. Looking at the map it was just round the corner. So off we set walking and ignoring all the rickshaw drivers. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn somewhere and only realised it when the road we were on came to a dead end. We decided to take a cycle rickshaw, but the only problem was we happened to be in an area where nobody spoke English. Looking at the map again for what we thought was our current location it didn't look too far from where we wanted to go but we had already walked quite far. Finally got a guy who at least knew numbers and we pointed to where we wanted to go on the map. He told us the price would be 50 rupees, we said it was too much and said 25. He said no so we kept walking. He came back and said ok. 40 min later we got dropped off kinda close to our destination. Guess we really didn't know where we were after all. We gave him the 50 anyways (to his confusion) as clearly he was right with the first offer, and off we went in search of our hotel. Later the group went to a temple we'd already been to, so we waited outside. Some kids came up and told Del he was handsome. We continued to chat to them, I think they just wanted to practice their English. They were very friendly and had quite a good grasp of the language.

The next morning we took a train the Agra. We visited the Red Fort there and had a great guide who filled us in on all the history of the Moghul empire. After this we went to a rug making factory. All of them are hand knotted and take up to 6 months to complete. We decided one of these would be a good purchase and bought one. So come visit us when we have and house and you can see it. Next we were on to the Taj Mahal. We spent plenty of time exploring the grounds. We got in trouble for taking a picture of Monkey. The guards told us that he was very unsafe, even though security let us in with him.

The following day we hopped on a train to a small village called Orchha. It is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by jungle and littered with ruined Temples and Palaces. It was a very welcoming place. We visited a farming village just on the outskirts and even a school. Our time there was relaxing, but unfortunately we both fell ill, good thing antibiotics are easy and cheap to get. Feeling much better now.

We boarded an overnight train to Allahabad and transferred to some small boats to travel down the Ganges. This boat trip was amazing. We just chilled out and watched the riverbank pass us by. Even had homemade food cooked for us on "the cooking boat". At night we pulled over and tents were erected so we could spend the night on the riverbank. In the morning we got back on the boats and made our way to Varanasi. We were actually sad to get off the boats as we had been lulled into a deep level of relaxation.

The trip has been good so far, especially not having to worry about buying train tickets. But we are happy that we got to Delhi early and experienced real India up close and personal on our own first. For now, we have two nights in Varanasi and then north to Nepal...