Taj Smaj.

After our tour of Udaipur, Oli and I settled in for a nice long nap during the heat of the day, then went out for a nice meal in town. The following morning we checked our of our hotel and headed over to tour the City Palace. We wandered around the massive museum checking out all of the weapons and paintings. There were entire rooms covered in tiny mirrors and stained glass, and many sitting areas for the maharajahs. We spotted the portable tiger cage AND the crazy monkeys terrorizing tourists in the central garden. It was a treat! After the palace we grabbed some odd veggie burgers at the Sunrise Cafe, then moseyed on over to the Whistling Teal to lounge on their ourdoor couches in the garden and read while smoking hookah. It was lovely to escape the heat! We had dinner at our hotel and then went to a local haveli to watch traditional folk dancing and puppetry. Very interesting! Unfortunately we didn't have our camera, but the sights were pretty cool. One of the elderly ladies piled 9 large water bowls on her head an danced around! Other ladies danced with fire on their heads,and there was a magic puppet ho could juggle his own head. Fantastic!

Firoz took us to the train staion and bid us goodbye. If you know anyone who is going to visit Udaipur and would like a great, honest, reliable guide, let us know and we will send you his contact info.

We piled on to our overnight train to Agra and settled in for 12 hours of sweatiness. We arrived 20 minutes late today, shame shame, and hopped in an overpriced rickshaw to the Yash Cafe, where we had cheap breakfast, a shower, and stored our bags for the day. Then the main event- the Taj Mahal! This is number 5 checked off for us, only 2 wonders to visit after this! The people surrounding the Taj are incredibly forceful touts who scream at you and pull you left and right to go into their shops- we resisted and it is a wonder we made it to the south entrance in one piece.

After paying the extortionate entry fee, we were told that many of our belongings could not accompany us into the Taj- including but not limited to- a broken lighter, a headphone splitter, Oli's iPod, cashews, and a Suduku Book. We locked these up outside the gates and ventured in. You must walk through 2 large red sandstone gates in order to get the full view of the gleaming Taj. It was absolutely breathtaking (though a bit smaller than I had imagined. Oli says my expectations are too high.) There were tons of people swarming around, cutting each other off to get the perfect picture of them holding the Taj "in their hand". Oli and I made a grand escape to the side by the Mosque and I was lucky enough to take repeated photos of Oli's forthcoming "facebook photo". Oh dear.

We headed into the mausoleum and quickly made a lap as it smelled like 10,000 hot and sweaty feet. Ughhh. It was more impressive from the outside anyway! We sat ona bench outside and watched a ferret scurry across the lawn and then decided it was time to move on. We grabbed a rickshaw to the Agra Fort, and were once again molested by people selling gaudy trinkets, and even a large leather whip. I wonder who their main clientele are? We entered and wandered around the cool passageways and checked out multiple views of the Taj, and then agreed to take a rickshaw back. We realized too late that we were to ride on a cycle rickshaw, peddled by a small old man. Soon after we departed we reached a hill, and the old man's brother pulled up in another peddle rickshaw. Oli hopped over to the other one and away we went. I'm not sure what happened but suddenly I turned around and Oli was the one peddling! That man musta been very convincing. They then stopped on the side of the road and said that we needed to go and visit some shops so they could get commission, they were very poor men. We made them drive us back to Yash cafe, paid them generously, and retreated to the safety of the internet cafe. We don't wanna go back out there- its the most stressful place in India so far! Tonight we are off to Delhi, and tomorrow we have a train to Varanasi. We are attempting to upload photos right now, fingers crossed!