Hi everyone,

                 Up early this morning and onwards to Agra. First stop this morning was the Monkey Temple. Quite a few baby monkeys and big red bottomed ones too! The temple looked like a building site-not very impressive really. When we walked in this boy in traditional clothing asked us to say a prayer to the monkey god or something. He held out this bowl of water with green bits floating in it (we'll call it Dengue water for now) and put some in his hand, kissed it then wiped it in his hair. He offered it to Julie who pretended to kiss it then wiped it in her hair. He then offered it to Kirsty who said "no thanks". As we walked away Julie, very anxiously shouted towards Kirsty "GET ME THE ALCHO-GEL NOW !!" Julie later explained that her reasons for accepting the Dengue water was that she didn't want to offend. Kirsty was too worried about her hairstyle!

One cheeky little nap and cheese toasty with finger chips later we arrived at Fatehpur Sikri which is a ghost city. Bit of history for you here....Akbar (some ancient ruler) was without a heir so he went to this village and spoke to a saint who predicted Akbar would have 3 boys. Low and behold he did so Akbar,like, built a whole city here. Stupid man didn't factor in the lack of water supply so it was only inhabited for a short while.

When Harry, our driver, stopped to pay some taxes to get into Agra, we stayed in the car, doors locked and windows up. One charming sight we saw was a cute monkey tied to a stick with a huge tennis ball growth on its neck..nice! 

One of the main things we've learnt in India is that you can't be stationery in a car without some limbless,toothless stinky beggar asking you for food or money. But we manage to overcome it by looking the other way and thinking about our nice little trip around the world.

Arrived in Agra which isn't totally unlike Delhi but maybe a bit more greener in places. The markets that we've past have been amazing. A real eye opener. We knew that India was a poor country but you can't comprehend the deprivation, it has to be seen to be believed. Its the kind of stuff you'd see on Comic Relief. Which is nice.

Our Hotel in Agra is not as luxurious as Umaid Mahal but considering whats outside our door we can't complain. Tonight has been the first night we've tried proper Indian food and its quite nice.  The one thing that was running through our minds with each mouthful was how on the way here we saw hundreds of chickens and other animals kept in the most appalling conditions. The RSPCA would have a field day out here!

One good thing though is we're going to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow. Very early start to catch sunrise. So we'd best get off to bed now.

We love and miss you all

Kirsty and Julie

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