अपडेट...

so it has been a while! Last time I wrote, I was still in Pokhara. Since then, we've been to multiple cities! It was an uneventful bus ride from Pokhara to Kathmandu. 7 hours or so. We spent 3 nights in Kathmandu, seeing the sites. Went to Patan, Swayambunath, Bouda and Bhaktapur. The architecture is amazing!!! I have tons of pics, will upload like crazy in a few days!!! [aside: everyone here in Nepal/India LOVES Bryan Adams. Seriously. I've heard his song being played everywhere!! the one thats like 'everything I do, I do it for you...' Its playing right now in the internet cafe lol]
Trip from Kathmandu to Lumbini (birthplace of the Buddha) was a bit more *exciting*. Nepal was having many bandhs (read:strikes) on the day we were travelling. The trip was supposed to take 9 hours, but instead took over 12 due to all the road blocks!!! There were two issues going on. The President and Vice president were just elected in Nepal, and the VP was callous enough to take his official oath in Hindi, and dressed in Indian clothing. So many many people were very offended, thus the strikes. ANother issue was that students wanted decreased bus fares, and so they were blocking roads too. Anyhow, it was a long long journey. Lumbini was pretty cool though. Theres tons of different temples there, all in the different styles of each country that built the temples.
From Lumbini, we went to India. It was a 3 hour bus ride from the border of Sunnauli to the nearest railhead at Gorakpur. From there we took a train to Varanasi. I think it was 6 hours or so. Since we booked our tickets the day of travel, all the AC cars were booked up, so we went in non-ac, which was pretty gross. It is MEGA humid in this part of the world!!!
Varanasi..... dusty, dirty, loud, crazy.... It is quite the place. There was a big Shiva festival going on, with tons of pilgrims dressed in orange, yelling 'bolbum' or something like that. They get the Ganges water, and RUN through the streets to the temple with it. Seriouisly, they will run you down!!! It is true what they say, everyone in Varanasi will try to rip you off. Except for our awesome hotel. But everyone else will try to take advantage of you.
Our last day in Varanasi, we went up to Sarnath to visit Karma and Tashi (the monks we met earlier on in the Jeep to Gangtok). It was nice visiting them again. They took us on a tour of Sarnath and then Tashi took us back into Varanasi so we could catch our train up to Agra. We went to a McDonalds, and I got the McAloo Tikka burger:p K got the Veg Surprise burger lol.
So the train up to Agra was 5 hours late. An 11 hour train ride that is 5 hours late... Go figure, its India!! And yet again we managed to not get an AC berth, so yet again it was a sticky-gross night in the non-AC car. Oh and I managed to get the flu sometime in here...
Anyhow, now we are in Agra, but tomorrow is our last day here. We take the train up to Delhi tomorrow evening. We were lucky to arrive here during the birthday celebrations of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal. Due to these celebrations, entry is free!!! Normal entry is Rs750 (about $15 CAD I *think*, to put into perspective, our accomodations cost Rs 300 per night) So K and I have been to see the Taj about 4 times :D I highly reccommend it to anyone!!!
thats the past few weeks in a very small nutshell!!
till next time,
D