INCREDIBLE INDIA 4th-11th JULY

Our arrival in Delhi was a hot and tired one - it was 4am and our flight had been delayed. So it was really nice to finally arrive at our luxurious accommodation - ha yeah right! india is a whole new world when it comes to travelling and we realised we would have to adapt pretty quickly!

George was instantly put off by the rubbish and dirt, people using the street as a toilet and the cow poo everywhere. I could tell from the start this would probably be his one and only visit to India.

After spending a couple of days with the billion people who live there and of course the "holy cows" we set off from Delhi on the train to meet my lil sis Pamela in Jaipur (this turned out to be a lovely city and thank goodness she had been working hard to find a nice hostel before we came and she did a brill job!)

Then from Jaipur we went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal - this made the visit to India really worth it. It is magnificent - you think you know what it will look like since we've all seen the photos so many time but in real life it just surpasses all expectations. Other than the Taj Agra is pretty much the same as elsewhere and it rained a lot so we were walking in sewage sludge constantly. nice.

Then one humid evening while sitting on our rucksacks in a train station till 2.00am in the morning (while our train was 4 hours late) we managed to see more rats running around than all of us had seen in our lives all together.

 Pamela even managed to go to the same toilet as one at the same time!

When our train finally arrived it took us to Varanassi............apparently a very enlightening place.

Varanassi was definitely completely different to where we had been so far and the Ghats along the Ganges were really amazing. No matter what time we went there was something interesting happening and lots of colourful characters about. We were so keen to see the Ghats at their best we even got up at 5 in the morning for a boat ride. For Hindus this is a very sacred and spiritual place and many people come here to cremate their dead on the river and then mourn for them by bathing in it.

This was another highlight of India and when we managed to escape the loony that chased us up the road shouting "LEAVE INDIA NOW" and put the dirt, rubbish, heat and beggers to the back of our mind - I did genuinely like Varanassi and could see why people fall in love with it.