We left Varanasi at 6 in the morning as we had a very long drive to the Panna Tiger Reserve (did not see any tigers though). The journey took about 14 hours to cover about 400km - the roads are schockingly bad, we were on a main highway and for about half the time it was just a big dirt track with huge potholes everywhere (just like the road to Dots if you know it!).

It was a great chance to see the real India though and to see how the people live. The scenery changes all the time, one minute you seem to be in Australia, then into Vietnam and another few miles down the road it resembles the English coutryside.

India is a very poor and dirty country, a lot of the people still live in simple little huts and do not have running water or toilet facilites and there is a lot of rubbish everywhere which is really disapointing as it can ruin some stunning scenery.  Electricty is starting to come through in most places now, but there are a lot of powercuts still.

Dispite this the people here are really friendly and are completely intrigued to see westerners drive through in this big white truck.  When we stop in small towns along the road to buy vegetables for dinner or some samosas for lunch it is the main excitment of the week for the locals, we often have a crowd of 50 or 60 people watching our every move which takes some getting used to and can be a bit scary at times as they can get very excited, especially when the girls get out of the truck in their shorts and low cut tops!

We only stayed at the Panna Tiger Reserve for the night and we left early the next morning to drive to the erotic temples of Khajuraho which are about 45 minutes away.  There are five large stone temples set in really nice gardens.  The temples have thousands of carvings on the outside, a lot of which are all the positions of the Kama Sutra and are quite grafic!

From there we caried on for about another 4 hours to the town of Orchha, which is an old town where there is a large fort and lots of deserted palaces, we just drove into the grounds of one of these and camped out by the river.  It was probably the best camping spot I have ever seen, it is just outside of the town and along the river, so with the moonlight it was stunning.  We sat there and had a camp fire and worked our way through several beers.

The following morning we ventured into the middle of the town to see the fort which was stunning, it was kept in very good condition and had great views over the countryside, river and the main town. As we left we went into town to get some samosas for breakfast and they had a very colourful market selling all of the brightly coloured dies for decoration, so we got lots of pictures.  In the centre of the town they have converted an old palace into a mosque which was very nice and a great place to get away from the hectic market.

We left Orchha at about 12 and drove upto Agra where we camped in the grounds of the Lorries hotel, which was very famous at one point, but has let itself get quite run down now.  The following morning we got up at 5:30 and took a rickshaw to see the sunrise over the Taj Mahal which is incredible.  I thought that my expections may be to high and I would be disapointed, but as soon as you see it for the first time through the archway you can see why it is one of the seven wonders of the world.  The Taj Mahal is made entirely of marble and has very delicate inlays of other stones in intricate patterns which has to be seen to be beleived. We stayed there for about 2 hours to see it changing colour as the sun rose up and then we went to see Agra Fort (Red Fort).  This is a huge fort made out of sandstone and it has had lots of different bits added by different rullers over the years.  The best is a palace and mosque made by the same guy that did the Taj Mahal and it looked very similar with massive balconies looking out towards the Taj Mahal in the distance.

In the afternoon we went to a workshop where we could see how they made all the marble inlays for the Taj Mahal which is amazingly intricate and we also went to a jewelry store to see Black Indian Star Stones, which are jet black stones only found in India and when the sun shines on them there is a star that appears in the jem which looks stunning.

We left Agra this morning and headed to the deserted city of Fatepur Sikri which was built as the capital of the Mogul empire, but was deserted after 15 years as they moved to Lahore which is now in Pakistan.  There is a huge fortress, several palaces and mosques made of mainly sandstone and marble.  You got hasled a lot here from hawkers trying to sell you stuff and I did not feel to well, so I did not enjoy this that much.  We are now in Bharatpur which is about 1 and a half hours from Agra where we are going to the famous bird sanctury this afternoon.

I will write again soon.