As I said, the place is quite turisty, but it still has a certain charm to it because it is so small. There is one main road where shops selling clothes, jewellry and other things mix with cows, temples, tourists and motorcycles. Except for the lake as scenery there is mountains surrounding the entire town. This with the lake makes for some very nice sunsets. There is a sunset outlook point where people gather. There is sadhus, drumplayers, jugglers, cows and monkeys. The atmosphere is very relaxing and some people end up staying here for very long.

Our last day here we wandered around the lake and visited a temple. It was called the Brahma temple, apparently one of the only temples dedicated to Brahma in india. The temple is not that impressive, but they give you flowers that you have to donate in the temple, well, half in the temple and half you have to throw in the lake at Brahma Ghat...

So we go to the ghat after the temple to do just this. As soon as we arrive we are approached by someone who says they are a brahmin(priest) that wants to instruct us in what to do and help us. We ask if it costs money, he says no and just says that afterwards you can give a donation if you want...

Agnes and me we both get a brahmin each that talks to us and gives us a mantra in hindi that we have to repeat after him. There is alot of indians around that do the same with brahmins so It is interesting to see how this works. we also have a silver plate with our flowers on, plus some rice, sugar, spices, red color and something more I cant remember now. At the end we will have to throw this in the water.

After the mantra he asks me how many family members I have, then asks if I am married, have kids and stuff like that. And he says some things that will give me a joyous and prosperous life. Then he starts talking about my family again and ask me to donate money for the happiness and wellbeing of my family. And I thought it was just about the spirit, not about money. He tells me the indians usually give a 1000 rupees(around 13 pounds) so he tells me for a foreigner around 500 is ok. I say it is far too much and when i say I will only give 50 rupees and in the donation box later he says that I have to put it on the holy coconut, at this point It was very hard not to laugh. There was a coconut there but I had no idea it was the holy money coconut, anyway, I put 50 rupees on the coconut and the guy says he is not very pleased with me. After this I put my stuff in the water. Afterwards I meet up with Agnes who was sitting further away with another guy and she has decided to give 50 as well, but her guy was not as persuasive as mine and she gave money afterwards, not on the holy coconut. THE HOLY COCONUT! come on...

It was a fun experience, and I am sure there are real priests in this ghat, but unfortunately there are alot of people who try to scam money out of tourists so you never know who you can trust. Anyway, me and Agnes are starting a new religion that worships coconuts. I am sure it will be huge.
This is now year zero, birth of coconutism! Go coconuts!

that is it for now, we have moved on to Jaipur which is the capital of Rajasthan! more on this in a few days.

Pctures to this blog will come when we find a quick connection!

Kiss kiss!

Ola and Agnes

written by  agnesola on March 9, 2008 from Pushkar, India
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...
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It has all the attributes of an indian big city. It is noisy, dusty and polluted. But it is also filled with old buildings, palaces and forts.
There is also an old part of the town with different handicrafts being sold in different streets.

We stay in a hotel that has two nazi indian brothers running it, they are really careful that everyone turns of the water when they are finished with their showers, and sometimes they turn of the main switch when they think someone is taking a too long shower. I guess this would be kind of alright if I thought they were doing it because of ecological reasons, but they themselves use an excessive amount of water everyday to water the colloection of plants they have on the rooftop, so they are just controlling and weird. Anyway, our room is ok and cheap so we don't complain.

We went to visit something called the Hava Mahal. Which is part of the city palace complex. It was built so that the women of the palace could sit and watch the everyday life of the town from a protected place. It is alot of windows facing the old city. We wanted to see the city palace as well, ut the main exhibition was closed so we did not feel like paying to see only a small part.

The next day we went on a long walk to see the city fort, which is perched on a cliff overlooking the city. It was a 2 km zigzag route to the top, but once we arrived the views were amazing and it was very nice to escape the hectic streets of the city for a while.
The fort itself is not that impressive, but it is nice to wander around there, we also stayed for lunce to relax even more.

So, we did not like Jaipur that much, but it was ok. There was a really nice restaurant close to our hotel and we stayed there during the evenings and we hooked up with some people and chatted away our nights with other travellers. So, not so interesting city, but interesting people!

Thats it. next up is Agra and the Taj Mahal!!!

Kiss kiss

Ola and Agnes

written by  agnesola on March 12, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...
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There we are... When you ask someone about India, they can tell you probably a lot of things... from saris to Hindouism to ganges and spirituality...
But one thing that everyone knows about India, is that the most famous building there is the Taj Mahal!

So we arrived in Agra from Jaipur... happy to leave the business of the capital of Rajasthan... On the first afternoon, we haven't done much, we just had a lunch on a

We also went around the area to see where the different entrances for the Taj are, and when it opens...

On the next ay, we got up very early, to be at the Taj Mahal at 6am and see the sunrise

But that doesn't matter, wether it was sunny or not, we cold discover the Taj Mahal... and it wasn't disappointing.

We entered the site through big ochra gates and little by little the Taj was visible...
I don't think that it is necessary to actually tell you how it looks, I will simply tell you that it is a very beautiful building, looking like a fairytale Castle from the middle east, all made in white marble, which makes it look extremely pure.

The inside of the Taj Mahal is actually a mausoleum built by Sha Jahan for his wife, when she died... amazing to see what love does...
The light is very minimal when you enter and it takes time to adjust to the dark... Once you do, you discover all the decorations and beautiful details...

We stayed a few more moments looking at the outside before leaving the site, still very much impressed by it.

And we were very happily surprised too as it was very interesting to walk and wander around the fort, where architecture here as well was pretty impressive, with some very old parts made of red bricks only, and some other, more "royal" made of white marble...

Inside the Fort, are also many green spaces, which makes it even nicer to enjoy...

The rest of the afternoon, we had pretty much only to wait for our next train... so we went top a restaurant and watched movies while it was raining outside! Lovely!

So we left Agra, for Varanasi, our heads still full of images from one of the most well-known site in the world!

Agnes and Ola

written by  agnesola on March 15, 2008 from Agra, India
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...
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We had already booked our train to leave Varanasi 2 days after we arrived, because our guidebook is strangely not so positive about the town so we thought that 2 days would be enough. To our surprise it was lovely, and the feeling of the place is very nice, or as the new saying goes, very shanti! Our guesthouse had ok rooms, but the best thing with it was the rooftop terrace where loads of travellers hang out and we met some really nice people that we spent our days there with! We would like to have stayed another day or two.

As in Pushkar there is alot of bathing ghats where the hindus come to wash away their sins, they do this very early in the morning. At other times the people who live here come

For us, being in this water without a very very good reason seems very weird. Actually, it

We went to the main ghat one night to see a Puja(prayer) ceremony. We met a indian lady there who was a professor in Mombai who had come too see the ceremony and to visit Varanasi. We asked what the ceremony was about and she said that we indians love

The day after it was time to take a rowboat in the morning to see people do the morning puja. This is when they come to wash away their sins. They start very early so the

It is quite a hectic town, but along the ghats it is quite calm too walk, no cars or rickshaws, just people. And you meet alot of different people while walking there. It is cool. The rest of the town is mixed between narrow alleys in the old street to people and cowfilled big streets in the newer part. And with little interesting stores around every corner! even a german bakery, not a german in sight, but still... it had some great food!

On our last day we visited a place 15 km from Varanasi called Sarnath. This is where buddha held his first sermon and where he came after gaining enlightenment under a bodhitree in bodhgaya. There is a few temple ruins here but they are not very interesting. What is nice here is that it is sooooo calm. very non indian. It is a pilgrimsite for buddhists and there was many chinese and thai there. We sat down on the green grass surrounded by trees and meditating monks. It was a perfect getaway for a few hours before we went back to hustle and bustle of Varanasi.

So that is our Holy Varanasi visit...now we are in Delhi, waiting to take a train to Corbett National park for some Tigersafari...

Ola and Agnes!

written by  agnesola on March 17, 2008 from Varanasi, India
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...
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The town close to The nationalpark is a dusty noninteresting place, so the first thing we did when arriving at 0500 in the morning was getting a hotel and some nice sleep.

Once that task was finished(after about 4 hours...zzzzzzzzzz) we set out to find some info about the park, for prices and such. We also needed to rent a jeep for the safari. Luckily we bumped in to an italian guy that wanted to share the jeep with us so it got a little bit cheaper. We also wanted to do a Elephantride, but no one could really tell us much about this, apparently ity is impossible to book, the one who arrives first there gets to go. anyway, we just had to hope for the best.

The gates for the park opens at 0600. so we told our driver to pick us up at 0500, because we wanted to be the first so we could book the elephant ride. He was 45 minutes late though(bastard) and the only answer we get is ok ok, no problem... whenever you complain here it is just like that, no problem. Everything is possible...
Well luckily we were first at the gate anyway, picked up our guide and went in to the park. We arrived at the place for elephants and were told that we had to come back at 1400 to book. So pretty much no one could guarantee us anything.

The Park is very nice though and has lots of animals. We saw three types of deer: Samba

Once back at the camp at 1400 we managed to book a Elephantride for 1530! They are just such cool animals! The ride lasted for 2 hours and took us to places the jeep could

We enjoyed our day, especially the elephant, but the park is a bit disorganised so it takes some fun of it, I think we would have been disappointed without our bigeared friend to ride on.

So much for now, we are in rishikesh and tomorrow heading for Delhi!

Kiss kiss!

Ola and Agnes

written by  agnesola on March 22, 2008 from Ramnagar, India
from the travel blog: Baby and Baby's around the world travel...
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