Hi there!

We left Agra on Friday afternoon and arrived in Delhi by train in the early evening (no upgrades this time!).

Delhi is a massive place with lots of extremes e.g. rich/poor, clean/dirty, hot/cold. One minute you are going down a neat, highway with well kept verges, then you turn onto a road where people are living tents made of plastic sheeting and wooden posts. I've seen families living on the islands between carrageways on roads! It's crazy (I think its because in the other places I've been to it's generally all been pretty poor and dirty, whereas in Delhi the contrast between rich and poor is so much more visable)!!

Also there is a lot of construction going on for the Commonweath games in October - they will need to pick up the pace otherwise there will be issues!

Once in Delhi we had a good bye dinner (this was the last night of the first trip) and said farewell to the group.

On Saturday I hired a tuk tuk for the day (we settled on a price of about 8GBP) and Pauline, me and a couple of the others went on a sight seeing Marathon! First we went to see a tower and the first Mosque in Delhi (really old), then to a very modern lotus temple, then to a tomb (very similar style to the Taj Mahal, but smaller). All in all a very successful sightseeing day!!

Yesterday due to the terror threats in Delhi we were unable to go to Old Delhi and see more monuments etc so we went to the local shopping mall. It was just like being in the Metro Centre! Except that no one was really buying anything in any of the shops because they were way too expensive!! Guess which shop I found in one of the malls..........yes thats right Marks and Spencer!!! I laughed because there was a top in there which I have that was made in India, but in the Delhi store they were selling it for 6GBP more than I paid for it!! Most things in the shop were considerably more than what you would pay in the UK!! Crazy!! I couldn't belive the prices in Accessorize!! Anyway it was good to see the other side of India!!

Today I am back in Agra to see the Red Fort and Taj Mahal again. I have just come back from the tour of the Red Fort and it is funny because the tour was completely different to the first one (although the basic information was the same).

I am pleased to be out of Delhi, because the pollution and dust wasn't pleasant!

Hopefully tomorrow we will leave for Jaipur - the pink city...........

All the best

Louise