Hi everyone,

Sorry I havent blogged for a while, thanks for sticking with it!

Last time I wrote I was in a city called Kharajuho which was a small but interesting place. It basically had several temple comlexes that were based on the Karma Sutra. The buildings were stunning and very detailed with beautiful (and raunchy!) carvings. I am going to try to upload some photos tonight and tomorrow as the hotel I am in has wifi. We also explored the old town which had pastel coloured homes, and were invited into an old mans' home so we went into his one room home and talked to us for a while about India, the caste system and his life farming. We then met some children who guided us around the local Jain temples, they were pretty cheeky! One very weird thing about India is that people want to take your photo all of the time. They will just come up to you and motion that they want a picture of you, or a picture taken with you. They are always very happy when they get a photo of you. It happens constantly and is quite weird. I think I must be pretty famous in India now, the number of times I have had my photo taken! Local kids often like it if you take their picture and then show it to them, they seem to find it really funny!

We then got the overnight train to Agra, which meant we arrived into Agra at 3.30am and then we had to find a place to stay. We walked around for a while and after the place we first went to was full, we eventually found somewhere to put our bags it was nearing 5am. So we decided to go straight to the Taj Mahal. We paid 200r for a guide to take us round and explain everything. The Taj is a much bigger complex than just the white building, there are several symettrical gates in red stone which in themselves are stunningly beautiful. When you walk through the gate archway you see the Taj through the arch and it completely took my breath away. It really is more beautiful than you see on TV or pictures, It is more complex, with arabic writing, gem stone inlays all over it, and bazaar symettry and optical illusions. I knew it would be good, but imagined that it would be over hyped, but it really isnt. I have never seen such a lovely building. Again we went through the usual parade of posing for locals photographs! In the afternoon we walked to the red fort, which again was really impressive. There isnt loads to do in Agra, and after such a busy couple of days with zero sleep we didn't try and do any more. Besides which we walked for over an hour in the baking sun to reach the red fort and I got pretty sunburned.

The day after we travelled to Jaipur, which is where I am now. We checked into a really lovely hotel as neither of us were feeling that great and just wanted to be somewhere nice for a while. The hotel is AMAZING. It has clean rooms with clean sheets, air con and….toilet paper! Oh yeah. And we can even get warm water too. Pure luxury. The hotel itself is beautifully painted with frescos on the walls and ceilings and gold doors and traditional Indian artwork. I have never stayed anywhere like it. We explored Jaipur a bit today but ended up cutting it short because Rawdon was a bit unwell, so just chilled in the afternoon before finding dinner.

People keep asking me what the food is like here, and I can say that it is very different to Indian food at home. Only a few things are recognisable to menus at home, e.g. nann, tikka, biryani, but the rest is very different. I am not eating any meat here (the power goes quite a few times a day making you wonder about refridgeration, and most places are no where near clean) but yesterday I had chicken in our hotel which was nice. The main thing on every menu is Paneer, which is indian cottage cheese. It is in EVERYTHING and seems to form the basis of most dishes, in various ways. Thali is another good dish, which is a bit of a few different types of food, dhal, roti, curds, rice, and some forms of curry paneer on the same plate.

Things I Like about India: The artwork, the textiles, the children, architecture, auto rickshaws, nice people you meet, food. Colours, religious statues, the scenary, bollywood films (trying to guess what is actually happening)

Things I hate about India: the way they treat animals, the constant stink of piss and s***, watching people piss and s***, the way someone is always trying to cheat you out of money, the inconceivable level of rubbish and dirt, and the way people just throw rubbish on the floor, children sleeping on the streets.