Petra

I like the cats here.

good pic of cat bad of me.

lap cat

Two!!!

oh yes you're cute!

I like Jordan.

Varanasi to Amritsar

After Varanasi we went to Rishikesh via Hardirwar. Rishekesh was nice but we were all a bit under the weather so it could have been nicer.

Next we went to Amritsar

When we arrived in Amritsar we put our bags in left luggage and when to the golden temple. It was very nice but sooo bright and my sun glasses were in my bag. Oops!

We spoke to a guy at the tourist info and he said we could stay in the dorm or at one of the hotels the golden temple provides for families. We tried to get a room at the dorm but the four of us were expected to share three beds with two other people. We tried the hotel next but they all pointed us back to the dorm no matter what we said.

We found a proper hotel which was offering us a room for 700 rs that wasn't bad. Our bags were still in left luggage and the tourist info guy was right beside it so we spoke to him. He pulled some strings and we ended up staying at the N.R.I. ( non resident Indians) hotel which was slightly better than the one for 700rs and it was only 300rs a night.

Inside the small vehicle free area around the Golden temple there was a coke refreshment kiosk and they were selling one 300ml bottle of pop for 5 rupees or 12.5 cents. They also had a Nestle kiosk which had a glass of powdered ice tea for 10 rupees and masala chai (spicy indian tea) for 5 rupees each, not so spicy indian tea was 3 rupees, not so spicy tea bag tea for 4 rupees and coffee was 6 rupees. These drink stalls were in two places, one of which was right by our hotel the other one was in front of the dorms. These drinks were super cheap and it was sometimes hard to get to the front because everybody, even us was drinking it like water. (We had a lot of pop in Amritsar and I had a LOT of ice tea.)

Bundi to Varanasi

We stayed a few nights in Bundi, which was great, though our supper across the street the first night was awful. The restaurant at the guest house on the other hand was really good. Their lemon pancake was one of the best in India though they didn't drain the grease off the finger chips( french fry/chips/frites).

The fort and palace were nice if you could handle monkeys.

We found a roof top restaurant that had Wi-fi and had good enough food.

Now to go almost completely off topic- I would like to inform every one who is not French that you say wifi wrong we pronounce it Why-fy when we should be pronouncing it like the French who say wee-fee.

When we were done in Bundi, we had a horrible train ride to Agra. The train was packed and we had wait list tickets so we couldn't just say “I have reserved seats, get out of my spot”. Because we didn't.

In Agra, we stayed at the first hotel we looked at and it was nice enough. The Taj was lovely. Sam even went to see it twice because children under 15 were free. Which saved us 1500 rs. Divide that by 70 or 75 for pounds, 40 or 42 for dollars and 60 or 65 for euros to calculate the cost in your currency. That savings was the cost of three nights in our hotel in Agra. The hawkers in Agra were not as bad a people made them out to be or maybe I'm just toughening up.

The night train to Varanasi was a good one,and, for the first time we didn't have wait list tickets!

We arrived in Varanasi and eventually found a hotel room by Ganga -the Ganges-. The room wasn't great but it was only 450rs about 10-12 dollars. We were warned that the hawkers in Varanasi were worse than in Agra. I guess the cycle rickshaw driver were annoying; there were beggars everywhere; you couldn't go near the ghats without being asked if you want a boat ride; and almost every second shop or person selling something told you that you wanted to buy it. But it wasn't that bad, was it?

Fatephur Sikri near Agra

More from Fatephur Sikri

My new shoes

Sam's yummy thali

Sam and Dad in Turbans

Sleeping Monkey Guard Dog

Muesli that reminded me of breakfast at Matlock

Our bad driver and a forgotten blog

We normally have good rickshaw drivers. A few have gone a bit fast and or have been a bit aggressive but most are good. Today, we had the worst driver yet. First he bumped a parked rickshaw that he could have avoided. Then we came to some cows blocking the road. Instead of honking and inching forward, he inched forward silently. The cows started to fight. We passed one but the other one (with smaller horns) was too focused on fighting to move. Our rickshaw driver ran over his hoof which made the cow fall down. After we passed, the cow quickly limped away from the other cow. I guess our driver is not a Hindu; as cows are holy for the Hindus.

(An older blog entry that I forgot about: We had an interesting train ride from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur as we tried to explain ice hockey to three Indian men. We ended up using a notebook to draw them pictures. The train ride would have been good if I hadn't decided to go sit on the top bunk. The light was right above my eyes for six hours and I got a really bad headache. After a good nights sleep I felt better again.)

Jaipur-Pushkar

The next day in Jaipur was good. We walked around in the tourist area and Sam and I had to buy full price tickets for some outdoor giant sun dial park because we didn't have student cards. - I don't even have a student card. Anyway, it's illegal for us Canadian kids to not to be in school but the ticket seller said we needed our student cards.

I bought some more shoes. I now have two pairs of Rajasthani shoes. They are both camel leather shoes/slippers/flats. One plain and one fancy. The plain pair are pointy and the other pair are rounded. They were both around 6 canadian dollars 250 rs and 300rs.

We all had supper at the Tali house again but there were more people and not as many staff so they didn't try to force us to eat the food as much.

The next morning, we got on a bus to Ajmer. There we went to the lake and the park around the lake where Sam bought something like a giant popadom only greasier and stale and disgusting. A boy came up to us asking for money, Sam gave him the giant popadom. He took it but he wasn't impressed. We went back to the bus station where we had lunch then got on a bus to Pushkar.

Pushkar had lots of tourist shops and reasonable accommodations. We bought more shoes! Now Mom and I have two pairs each. Dad doesn't have any. Sam has one pair and his foot was used to size a pair for his grandpa in Canada. We ate at one restaurant and had a really good meal. We watched the kids make it till the dad came in, then he helped. The pizza was made by a ten year old boy and was great. It was funny to watch them start before their dad came because they were squabbling about who got what job and I don't really know what else because the were talking Hindi.

The next day we left Pushkar and went to Bundi via Ajmer again. We ate at the same restaurant at the bus station.