The day before yesterday we saw the Taj Mahal. We got up early in the morning to see it a sunrise, and it was well worth it. The grounds and monument together are much more beautiful than any picture I've ever seen of it. The physical presence is truly breathtaking. Our experience was somewhat clouded however by the heat. At sunrise it was already 90 degrees and climbing rapidly with the sun. By the time we left, about two hours later, it must have been close to 100 degrees.

The people in Agra were nice and we had a much warmer experience than in Delhi. When we stopped near the Red Fort to take pictures of the Taj from a distance, a teenage boy approached us with his friends, and instead of trying to sell us anything, he just wanted to have his picture taken with us and especially with Courtney. He didn't even have a camera, he just wanted to be in a picture with us.

The rest of the day in Agra was spent trying to beat the heat and beat the merchants. Our driver insisted on taking us around to different merchants (only those who deal to tourists). "You look. If you like you can buy, no like, no buy. OK?" He was a good guy though and we did fall in love with a couple of things whice we bought as mementos. After running out of things to do we went to an Indian movie with our driver. He paid as a gesture of friendship, and we were touched. The movie dragged on for three hours, was filled with melodramatic intrigue, music, dancing and action. Still it was interesting to gain some insight into modern Indian culture and lifestyle by waht appeals to them.

The best thing about the movie going experience however was that it started raining while we were inside, so the temperature dropped about 20 degrees farenheight. What a relief. I never thought I'd be thrilled to see rain fall but I was that day. The best part about it was that it made for a cooler night in our non-airconditioned sleeper car.

The train trip was uncomfortable but probably the most fun and adventurous experience thus far. We understood that we were supposed to get an airconditioned sleeper car, instead we got a non-airconditioned car. It was a three tier, meaning three bunks on stacked each side of the compartment. We had 7 people in our compartment. A mother shared her cramped top bunk with her daughter after first setting her husband up with bed spread, and pillow.

Varanasi, India. Formerly known as Benares, or Banares, this most holy of Indian cities is located on a curve in the river Ganges and in between two tributaries. We arrived yesterday morning and checked into Hotel India, near the Varanasi Junction Train Station.

Today we got up at four a.m. to take a boat trip along the ghats of the river Ganges. Clouds obscured the sunrise, but the trip was still well worth it. We saw people engaged in a variety of sacred and everyday rituals: washing clothes, bathing, praying, meditating, cremating there dead, we even saw a few people getting shaves. The most uncomfortable thing we saw were four different dead bodies floating in the water. Each was wrapped in cloth, bound hands to knees and floating face down. We were told this is common. What happens is that instead of being cremated, some bodies are prepared as described, then tied to a stone and taken into the middle of the river to sink to the bottom. A common belief is that those who float back to the surface are Holy people.