Hello from agra!! We've had an interesting time up till this point. Our long journey here started on thursday when we left our wonderful gangtok and took another 5 hour 11 person jeep down the mountains. We were better prepared this time and had stocked up on things from the bakery. This satisfied my tuna sandwich craving. Yay for the sikkim! When we got to siliguri we took an autorickshaw to the station. This had 5 of us in to begin with but the driver was not satisfied so keep stopping and yelling at people to get it. When we reached the station 5 had become 9 with 2 people standing next to our bags in the luggage section! The station njp is ok. There are a lot of "hotel cum restaurant"s surrounding the station and we went to have something before our train. In one we were brought a menu so we asked for pakora (it being deep fried unlikely to upset our tummies), the man then said "5 minutes", left the restaurant presumably went to a vendor down the street. We were appalled by this but enjoyed our pakora. This system pays off when you want jelabes and cant find them as the boy will go out and buy it for you.
When we arrived in kolkata we were met by people from the company that we had arranged to see the sunderbans with. They took us to an ac jeep (a posher version of our vehicle from the previous day) and there were 5 of us in it. It also had seat belts! We were astounded by such luxury. We drove to a port which was 4 hours away and got on a boat. We looked out over this flat mangrove jungle and it was difficult to adjust to being able to see so far in the distance. We spent 2 days in the sunderbans looking to see if we could see an illusive bengal tiger. Sadly we didn't but we saw some dolphins, a crocodile, spotted dear and lots of beautiful birds. Our tour guide, David, is doing his phd in the ecology of the sunderbans so it was fantastic to be shown around by a true expert. The company also employs ex tiger poachers and local vilage people so we were very impressed with their ethos and felt like we were doing our bit to save the bengal tiger by helping this sort of enterprise. It was good to chill out on the boat and experience the unique environment.
When back in kolkata we decided to spend as little time in the station as possible so went from ac coffee house to ac restaurant before heading to the train. Our train took 20 hours to get from kolkata to agra. We slept for a lot of it. The 2 men in our section were great. One was in the air force and the other a business owner. Our conversation went about education and money and how much it would cost for their sons to study engineering in uk. It is strange comparing the chats we have had with younger indians to these middle aged men.
When we got to agra we were determined that as our hotel was close we should be able to walk to it. I went the completely wrong direction so we gave up and took an autorickshaw. Our hotel is low budget but very good. This morning we set off in search of the taj mahal but took a wrong turning and ended up walking in the opposite way! My map reading lets me down when there are no street signs to help! We jumped into a rickshaw and got sung to on our way to the taj. We payed him double! It was disappointing that we couldn't find it on our own but good to experience a proper bicycle rickshaw. The taj is very impressive but we would recommend going in the winter when the weather is cooler! We did manage to walk to the fort turning down offers from rickshaw, auto and camel drivers! Even in agra where there are lots of tourists we are still asked for photos to be taken with people. I must have posed with every member of one family! We dread to think that these photos end up on some mantelpiece somewhere in India!
We head to delhi tonight! Keep us in your prayers
Jx
