New Spoonbill Hotel Bharatpur

... at the hotel where they did some chanting (of course, he stopped when I got my video camera - seriously). Dinner was buffet style and it was decent. Tried another Indian beer - Indus Pride - their bottles are twice 12 oz, but I was told that's the normal size in England. There was supposed to be a puppet show after dinner, but I could not keep my eyes open long enough to stay afterwards. Came back to the room and promptly fell fast asleep!

Varanasi was our last stop in India, which made us feel relieved that we are leaving the dirt, pollution and chaos behind, and hope for the best in Nepal. We can safely say that we succeeded to spend nearly 6 wks in India without getting stomach sickness. We will always remember the head wobbling, spitting, cow ****, and men peeing wherever they find. This time we chose the lower ...

Our train arrived nearly an hour late and we boarded the half full carriages, struggling to get the luggage on board before it pulled out of the station. Breakfast was a cup of spicy chai (tea), with a spicy (what else) potato pancake and a slice of bread. There's becoming a risk of losing the "You'll lose weight" bet with Norah's brother, Donald, here! An hour and a half up the line, heading back north westerly and we are joined by Bhupendra, who left ...

... very light weight, and fly even in low winds. Many of the children here make them themselves from whatever they can get there hands on. The kite line is traditionally made from finely ground glass which is then bound into a thread by mixing it with heavy starch from boiled rice. I have seen the kites they fly here- there were lots in Jaipur. The object of the "game" is to stick your kite up and then "do battle" with someone in another street ...

... of Akbar's ghost city which was capital of India for all of 17 years. Our guide told us the following joke: An Indian boy takes his parents to court and tells the judge he doesn't want to live with them anymore. The Judge asks, 'why don't you want to live with your mother?' 'She beats me' replies the boy. 'So why don't you want to live with your father?' asks the Judge. 'He beats me' says the boy. 'Okay', says the Judge, 'who do you want to live with then?' The boy answers, 'I want to ...

We arrived in Agra in the heat of the afternoon. After a long bus ride (only 6 hours or so, but at the time it felt quite long) we checked into our hotel. I had started to feel sick on the bus a bit, so it was a relief to finally get there. Unfortunatley I was quite ill in the afternoon, luckily it happened after the bus ride. The next morning I felt better, and joined the group at 5:30 am to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. It was really ...

... diversidad de religiones es una realidad que no ha cambiado en este pais desde los tiempos de Akbar. Es verdad que en la India la religion que mayor numero de seguidores tiene es el Hinduismo. Sin embargo, por ejemplo, en el noroeste y centro-oeste, el Islam es mas comun que en otras partes del subcontinente. Pero la India es un pais taaaan grande que tambien es cierto que en cualquier ciudad, norte o sur, este u oeste, se puede uno ir a vivir a un edificio en el ...

From Agra, we continued our journey by way of Rajasthan. This state is a very popular tourist destination which you can tell straight away from the general infrastructure. The roads are real tarmac and there are fewer elephants, camels and horses on them. Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan but on our way there, we stopped off in Bharatpur which is a small village. Our night there was very restful as there was nowhere near as many beggars or ...

... und Baumeistern, ein virtuoses Prunkstueck wie es nur unter absoluten Herrschern entstehen kann. Rund um Agra, sieht man was Indien einmal war. Eine kulturelle Groszmacht, die fast 5000 Jahre Zeit hatte sich zu entwickeln. Das Agra Fort, die Palaeste von Fatehpur Sikri sind das Zeichen einer ehemaligen Schoenheit und zugleich ein Beispiel dafuer wie Kultueren wieder versinken. Von dem reichen und gerechten Koenigreich Ashokas und dem Imperium der ...

... la prima vista del Taj ci ha impressionati. Il bianco che si indovinava, la dimensione, le proporzioni, l'eleganza, il suo stagliarsi con dietro nulla altro che la nebbia.... Infatti c'è un altro dettaglio delle mattine di gennaio, ad Agra: c'è una nebbia non dico padana, ma tale da far vedere il sole solo verso le 9. Per cui, con il gruppetto che si ingrossava dei turisti meno mattinieri, siamo rimasti infreddoliti nella luce crescente anche se non diretta del sole ...