Singh Guest House, Varanasi, India, Wednesday 3rd November.

We left Jaisalmer again on the overnight train for Jaipur, were we stayed 3 nights at the Pearl Place. We spent a day exploring the city on foot and in the evening took a night tour of the city sights. The tour started on a bus, but when this became full we were asked to travel on the back of a jeep - which was much more interesting seeing the crazy busy sights of the old ‘pink’ city and Jaipur by night, the tour also included a stop off at a market emporium selling textiles, were Indian sellers gave “performances” of displaying their wares and trying to persuade the tourist of superior quality and a cheap price. The tour concluded with dinner at Nahargarh fort, with views over the city from up in the hills.
The following day we visited the city palace which was very impressive and included museums of weapons and costumes. We also explored the old town on foot some more.

We left Jaipur the following afternoon on the short train journey to Agra. Our guesthouse in Taj Ganj gave us our first glimpse of the Taj by night from the rooftop restaurant which was beautiful! On our first full day in Agra we decided to take a tour of the town via tuk-tuk with Uncle, whom brought us from the station the previous evening. We visited Agra Fort which had amazing views of the Taj and Yamuna river and was set in amazing grounds with marble and sandstone palaces. Uncle also took us to a marble shop for a demonstration and usual sales pitch. In the afternoon we visited Itimad-Ud-Daulah - nicknamed Baby Taj and the Chini-Ka-Rauza both mausoleums/tombs. The day concluded with a visit to Mehtab Bagh park, which had excellent views of the Taj from across the river.

The following day we set off walking towards the downtown area, and stumbled across a shopping mall, which included a cinema so we took the opportunity to watch our first Bollywood film in India, Jhoota Ni Sahi, not set in the glamourous back streets of Mumbai but in London of all places!

Finally on our last day in Agra we visited the Taj Mahal, its surrounded by manicured grounds and throbs with tourists, both Indian and foreign. It is an amazing sight and was worth the entry fee, although Helen did get furious about the state of the toilets which they tried to charge us to use!

That evening we left Agra and took the over night train to Varanasi, on first inspection it looks like another manic Indian city.