The Alaroni Big Trip: Diverse India

It's been another fascinating week in India. We spent two more days in Varanasi with a wonderful group of girls (orphans) from the Little Stars School. We took all 26 of them and 3 of the staff to dinner for pizza and ice cream on our last night there, concluding 4 days of activities and fun together. We took lots of photos, had them printed and then made a large poster with all the photos, which they hung up in their general area at the shelter. The girls were so warm, welcoming and appreciative it was nice to connect with such a worthy group of people and to see Maya and Mira making new friends on our travels.

From Varanasi we took a night train to Agra -aaaaahhhhhhhh, what an experience. We arrived at the train station at 11:30pm, where Maya immediately vomited in the parking lot because she was quite sick with the flu for several days (thankfully she's now almost 100% back with the living). The station had hundreds of people sleeping on the ground, stairs, benches etc and we were surely the only foreigners at the station. We found an outside place on the cement platform to put out a couple of sarongs so we could sit down,watch our backpacks, and let Maya get horizontal. Almost instantly the mosquitos found us, en mass, so we all lubed up with repellent. Next, the overwhelming stench of raw sewerage had Mira and I wearing bandana's like outlaws to reduce the noxious smell. Then came the rats - lots of them and big. They were not shy, anything but. I couldn't go more than a minute without jumping up and scaring away the rats trying to make a quick b-line right for us to get any food they may find in our possession. This went out for 4 hours until the train arrived at 3:30am. Once on the train, more delays occurred on route which resulted in us arriving in Agra at 4:30pm instead of 6:30am - 'running late' is a relative term when referring to local trains here. To add to the ordeal, Mira fell head first off our train cabin's top sleeper bunk onto her face on the floor and really scrapped up the bridge of her nose. We're very lucky she didn't break her neck. She's still sporting some pretty good scabs, several days later, but otherwise she's her same cheery self.

The first morning in Agra, Nadia and I did yoga on the roof of our hotel looking out at the dome of the Taj Mahal (don't envision me in any amazingly spiritual yoga positions - I still can't even touch my toes). Later in the morning we all went to see the iconic Taj Mahal which really does warrant a visit. The architecture and workmanship is truly magnificent.

After 2 nights in Agra we traveled to Ranthambhore, a 6 hour drive, in an attempt see a rare wild tiger. Fortunately, on our second 3 hour drive through the savanna and forest where a population of wild tigers live, we spotted one just before sunset. We were sitting in our open vehicle with our guide and heard the warning call of a mule deer which signified a tiger was nearby. About twenty minutes later, we were in awe as a stunningly beautiful tiger walked along a dry riverbank then passed right by the vehicle we were in. It really was quite exciting to see such a rare animal in the wild.

We're now back in Delhi and have just met up with Nadia's father Nabil and his wife Violet. It's great to reconnect with family. Tomorrow we all fly out to the small and relatively closed country of Bhutan, located in the Himalayas. The kids are excited about the prospect of seeing Mt. Everest on the flight into the country's capital, Thimbu.

All is good, even with the scraps, bug bites, various sicknesses, etc. Cheers, Rob