Agra

The city of the Taj Mahal Well Agra was amazing. You know what it was like??? Like we were in the Aladdin cartoon- that's what it was like, little alley ways, turbaned men, brightly coloured women, cheeky kids, magic carpets, donkeys.

When we arrived on the train from Delhi we got an auto rickshaw to take us to a guesthouse. We ended up chatting to the driver, who was a pretty decent bloke, he showed us his little book of glowing recommendations from other travellers who'd taken him as a guide around Agra.

Usually you take these books with a grain of salt, and usually we don't want a guide.. but this guy was the real deal and he understood that backpackers are not ATM machines on legs, maybe other tourists, but not backpackers. So he offered a very fair price to take us to the 'real' Agra and see the sights plus some off the beaten track. He wasn't pushy, didn't say ' you are my friends, I love you, I dream about you at night.' (Don't laugh, we had a guide like that, and I so wasn't impressed.) Just put his offer on the table and said take it or leave it. And we took it.

And KK was awesome! He took us around, told us how much to pay to get in, told us who would try and scam us, where to avoid if we didn't want to be surrounded by touts, little out of the way spots to get pictures, he told us the history of what we were seeing and took us to views of the attractions where there were no other sightseers around.

First up he drove us to a little out of the way tomb of Chini Ka Rauza built in 1628, which is dedicated to Allama Afzel Khal Mullah Shukrullah of Shiraz who was the prime minister under Shah Jahan, the Mughal king who built the Taj. It was very quiet and peaceful in the gardens. The outside of the tomb didn't look like much, because all the tiles had come off, but inside it was amazing. Every surface was painted, it was all still in pretty good nick. KK told us it was a very Persian influenced tomb, because that was where the guy was originally from (modern Iran).

Next up he took us to visit the Baby Taj- Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb. Built before the Taj Mahal, by Empress Nug Jahan for her father when he died. The detail in the marble is amazing, and it actually has much more decoration and detail then the Taj, which drew inspiration from it.

Afterwards we drove to the banks of the river Yamuna to see the locals do their washing. Being such a grey day, and the sand and the river and the sand being so grey, the colours of the saris and the sheets looked so beautiful.

He then took us further down the river to see our first, albeit faraway, view of the Taj, then he drove us to the bank directly behind the Taj, and instructed us to go behind the park- which he said isn't worth paying for and directly on to the grassy banks. We just sat down and looked at it. We wondered whether we even bother to go in and actually pay. It was amazing, and so surreal with the goats, water buffalo herders, people washing-not even paying attention to what was behind them.

We looked at the Agra Fort from the outside- KK said it wasn't worth paying to get in. And after seeing the forts in Delhi we knew he was probably right.

The outside was pretty impressive enough, and he told us the story about how Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son in the fort (apparently to stop him building things!)(Not a 100% sure how true that is.) One of his daughters who knew how fond he was of marble built him a little marble palace/prison on top of the Agra fort overlooking his beloved Taj Mahal (see the white building on top of the fort?), tomb of his favourite wife Mumtaz. And that's where he lived till he died 8 years later.

KK took us to a few other vantage spots and to good place for delish Indian food. After lunch he took us to see different Mughal handicrafts. We learnt how to make carpets, marble boxes and their silver jewellery. And then it was time for the grand finale....

It doesn't matter how many times you see pictures of the Taj Mahal, it will still blow you away when you see it for the first time through the archway. We were both speechless...and glad we'd decided to pay to go in (750 rupee for foreigners and only 20 rupees for locals!)

We stayed the rest of the afternoon until they kicked us out at closing, just walking around.

The next day in Agra was a festival, we're not sure quite what for, people seem to mumble when we asked, but maybe something to do with the monsoon. But it involved us waking up at 5.30am to the wonderful strains of Hindi music. There are loud speakers on all of the lamp posts outside, including the one outside our window. Which ended up blaring all day, non-stop until we left for Varanasi that night at 10pm. It also involves all kids flying kites all day, which makes for a pretty good panorama view on our guesthouses rooftop, what with all the kids fly kites on their roof tops, monkeys jumping from roof top to roof top, we feel like were in a Bollywood film with the music playing and the perfect view to the Taj Mahal.

The Taj by the way is an excellent backdrop for tea and toast at brekky.



During the day we got a local bus out to the ruins of Fatepur Sikri, built in 1571 to 1585 by a crazy king that wanted a new capital city for the Mughal Empire, but then forgot to check if there was a water supply near by.. the answer was no. So everyone that was moved to the new capital went back to Agra after the old king died.

When we got off the bus, it was raining and we were surrounded by incessant touts to be our guide. As soon as we convinced one guy we didn't need or want his services another guy would come and try his luck, after 5 touts we were pretty worn down, so when a guy came and actually told us some information that was actually useful, we agreed to hire him.

We actually only ended up going into the Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque) which ended up being for free

The Mosque-Around the outside of the arch is a quote by Jesus.

Johnnie Islam- we had to cover our heads when we went inside a tomb in the mosque





























Next on our train travelling agenda was Varanasi..................

Smelhi in Delhi

Sunset at Red Fort

June 7-11

The area in Delhi we were staying in was called PaharGanj, and is the main cheap guesthouse area. The main bazaar is filled with bright coloured scarves and sari's, bindis, sandles, incense... its like a whole street of Ihska shops! And lots of taxi drivers wanting to drive you to their uncles shop where the prices were better.It wasn't as hot as we were expecting either after so many horror stories. Whether that's because we're used to it after Asia or just arrived in a cool spot we're not sure, but we were happy it was bearable. It would definately be a shock though if you just arrived from winter in Oz and then it was combined with the filthy streets and the constant touts and the public -open -to- the- street- urinals. The first day we decided we'd walk to the Red Fort, which was built by the same sultan dude as Taj Mahal. Its humongous and red. It looked like a short walk on the map but it ended up taking an hour. We were a huge oddity walking along and whole bus loads of Indians would swivel in their seats to ogle us.When we got inside the fort we were amazed by the amount of locals, then we remembered it was Sunday, and whole families were out in their best suits and saris walking around the parks in the fort. It was so colorful! Lots of little girls had eyeliner around their eyes and were dressed in the kind of sparkly outfits we used to wear for dancing concerts! We ended up being a huge attraction- people took more photos of us, then we did of the fort! WE were sitting on the grass when one father and little girl came up with a camera, we thought they wanted us to take a photo of them...but it turned out they wanted Jon to take a photo of me with them! The next time we sat down, 3 little boys came up and sat in front of us and played a video game, then a mum and her little toddler came up, then a family of six and an uncle sat down around us... then 3 young guys... 3 more kids... 2 more guys.. more families. And we were just sitting in the middle smiling.. no one really spoke English.. so we all just grinned and they wobbled their heads and took turns taking photos with us... It was bizarre, like we were pop stars. We felt bad because we were asking all the kids their names and we couldn't repeat them!

Near sunset we walked around the main old bazaar back home. Past chai sellers, bangle sellers...fresh lime juice stalls, paan stalls, samosa stalls, dodging cow pats and dogs sleeping on the ground. There really are cows on the streets! Just doing there thing , munching on rubbish.... I saw one take a sandwich off a clothes stall vendor while he was talking to a customer, cheeky holy cow!

The only bad thing is there's not really any nightlife like in Asia, but i guess on the bright side we'll save money from no alcohol, more money for bangles!

The next day we walked to Connaught Place- 2 big circles of shops with a park in the middle. Sitting in the park we were mobbed as soon as we sat down. We ended up being convinced to get our ears cleaned by professional ear cleaners It was disgusting how much brown goo came out. They used quite scary metal skewers, that they stuck in our ears magically with out bursting an ear drum. They shook their heads and 'tsk tsked' us with all the goo. While that was happening shoe cleaners came up, they tried to make conversation by saying they liked our shoes, sizing up probably if they could polish crocs and thongs. And they obviously decided they'd give it their best shot and slyly started to try and polish our rubber shoes with toothbrushs and a 'magic cleaner'! We had people sticking things in our ears while we tried to stop the shoe cleaners stealing our shoes and other people trying to talk to us about cricket, then a guy wanted to look at my hat.. which was all frayed, saying he would take it away and fix it if I gave him money! When we finally got away after haggling and arguing over whether we had to pay a shoe cleaner who basically just sat there and watched the whole kerfuffle as well as everybody else, we had the best most shiniest, sparkliest thongs and crocs and the clearest hearing in Delhi.

Purana Quila- An old fort city from the 1500s

Jon walking down the Main Bazaar at 5am to got to the train station to go to Agra.

Angkor What??

We got a bus to Siem Reap on Friday the 30th of May, listening to all the latest Khmer hits, karaoke style. At a bus stop on the buses break we could buy delicious (and nutritious) deepfried crickets and bugs, with a sprinkling of chilli, mmmm crunchiness. We could also purchase fried tarantulas, which were huuge.



Arriving at the Siem Reap bus stop and getting off the bus was insane. Everyone was mobbed by like 50 taxi drivers, we couldn't get off the bus there were that many in front of the door.. all of them''miss miss, SIR SIR I take you!'' ''I talk you first.. you now come with me'' They grab you and try and pull you to their taxi..one took my bag off me and started to take it away. I ended up yelling at them to go away because you can't even talk to one with out another interrupting trying to talk to you. The reason they're all so crazily keen to take you is not because they're desperate for the $1 it takes to get to your guesthouse...it's because your taxi driver is usually the one who ends up getting the gig to drive you around the temples for the next few days, which is very lucrative.

Our driver Setirit took us around Angkor Wat area for 3 days.

Angkor, derived from a Hindu word means 'capital city'. And all around Siem Reap are the remains of the Khmer Empires various capitals during different kings reign. The Khmer Empire existed from the 9th to 12th centuries and was the biggest empire in SE Asia at that time, covering modern Cambodia aswell as Laos, much of Thailand, and the bottom of Vietnam. It was in the middle of the trade route between India and China, and there were many traders from both regions. However Hindu missionaries from India made a larger impression on the Khmers and their writing, culture, law and politics were thoroughly Indianised. Hindu was the national religion, Buddhism coming much later. The Empire fell into dissaray after the 12th century, and was left for the jungle. All the locals knew about it being there, there was a Buddhist monastery there, but they were happy to leave it as it was. It was not until a French explorer stumbled on it in the 1800s that it was re-introduced to Europe.

We literally wore our camera's out taking photos here, far too many to download here, so here are some from our favourite temples that we saw over the 3days.

ANGKOR WAT was built by the great Khmer god-king Suryavarman II in the first part of the 12th century. The King built Angkor as their state temple and dedicated it to one of the main Hindu gods Vishnu. Archaeologists reckon that Angkor was part of a wider metropolis that covered 1000km with a population of nearly 1 million. That's way bigger then any of the cities in Europe would have been at the time. It has lots of cool carved bas reliefs all around it with Hindu legends, and war battles. This is probably the most impressive and well known of all Angkor temples.

Bas-reliefs

Bayon is unsettling. Every which way you look in this crumbling temple you see this spookily serene face staring back at you. There are 37 towers (supposedly to represent the 37 counties of the Empire according to a random Khmer dude who told us) all with a Buddha-like head on each of its 4 sides.

TA PROHM

The second day we gave in to all the little sweet girls(but astute business people) and brought their trinkets and postcards. Thinking maybe that would ward off other little midget salespeople.. but if anything that just shows you have money and you can be convinced to buy. So we sat for 20 minutes having a drink, hoping the little girls would get bored and harass some one else, but no, they turned into petite zombies and like a broken record stood by our chairs and repeated '5 for 1 dollar, 5 for 1 dollar' for their little trinket hangy things.. we tried to talk to them, but they were determined to break us down.These little girls and also boys appear at EVERY temple. Luckily we are not swayed by little girl cuteness, otherwise you would all be receiving mini cross bows and tiny whistles as presents.


The third day we drove out to Banteay Srei, which is probably the most detailed of all the temples. The finale was meant to be Angkor Wat at sunset but a massive storm that came out of nowhere took care of that pretty quickly.















When we weren't hanging out at temples, we looked around Siem Reap which has lots of interesting places to hang out and have a drink, including one place that had crocodiles and a drink pulley system. Sounds a bit cryptic, but was very cool. And we didn't take any nice pictures, so you will just have to use your imagination!

Well this is it for Asia. Finally moving on to India!

After Cambodia, we hung out and did nothing in Bangkok for a few days before our flight to Delhi. It was hugely fun, to just hang out, knowing our way around the city and not having to consult a map. We caught up with friends we had met on our travels, had our last Thai massages and reunited with our favourite beer Chang.

It was a very good ending to our first 2 months, and we almost didn't want to leave...but all good things must come to an end....

So you can begin new good things!