24.07.10 - 03.08.10

Arrived in Varanasi late at night and checked in to what appeared to be a zombie prison, the gaumless staff showed us to our windowless rooms and once we shooed out the cockroaches we settled in. We made our way up to the rooftop bar and sampled the famed 'Bang Lassis'. Having highly underestimated the potentcy of them we realised we could not move our legs and spent a good deal of time up there in our seats and laughing at our surroundings... i needn't elaborate on what the last ingredient was along with yoghurt and bananas.
The next day we went on a sunset tour along the Ganges. Watching the burning ghats where the Hindus cremate their dead was interesting and it was strange to see the locals swimming and drinking the water of a river filled with corpses. We made our way to the other side of the river where the bank was a beach with grey sand where many bones were washed up, we were debating wheather it would be insensitive to pick up the bones just as our guide through a femur at us and went on to ask us if we fancied a of football... with a skull. On the way back down the river there was a religious festival going on which we stopped to watch, after we had enough of the bells and creepy chanting we made our way back to the zombie prison.
Next stop was Agra for the Taj Mehal. The first day there we went and saw it just from the outside. It was quite a beautiful building, but without sounding too ignorant for something which is supposed to one of the seven new wonders of the world it wasn't all that wonderful, I could probably name seven more wonderful things... and cheese sandwich for instance. The next day we had planned to wake up at sunrise to appreciate it in a different light and venture inside, but after having overslept we decided to sack it off, if the outside was this disappointing we were unlikely to be impressed with the inside for a ten quid entrance fee (extortion for India prices).
Last stop in India was back to Delhi again to catch up the Heather and the Kashmir Crew. We spent a couple of days working for their tourist company trying to lure poor unsuspecting tourists, much like us on our first day, into the office to book tours. We all got rather excited at the promise of big wages and nearly extended our flights to begin careers in the tourism industry. After two days of what was supposed to be work we realised the only fun of it was chatting to random strangers and taking them for drinks, which we will doing in different countries for the whole trip, so we stuck to our plans and left for China when originally scheduled.
All in all India was a funny old place, an experience to say the least. The locals were on the whole very friendly people (some a little too friendly), but it took some time to get used to some of their habits, for example the strange head wobble they do which seems to mean yes, no or maybe. Also the fact that nothing runs on time and random power cuts which often occur, particularly annoying when watching football! Cows everywhere was something we adjusted to as well: in the roads, in the rivers, even in some folks houses.
So we had a blast! Got off on a good start to our travels... so let's see what China has to bring us.