Holy gangas

 After all the mughal history in Rajasthan, we are now in holy Varanasi... where the gangas river is worshipped as a goddess, is a direct gateway to heaven and is just full of a lot of holy shit... from WAY too many different sources!

 Still, the energy and spirituality in this city is amazing!

The Taj

Taj Mahal. Seen it. 

We finished off our tour of the Rajasthan province with a morning view of the Taj Mahal. It was as impressive a structure as it looks. Perfectly symmetrical in all its parts from the gardens at the entrance, to the long fountain leading up to it, and the matching mosque and answer room that sit on either side. The only asymmetrical point is the second tomb stone of the mughal emperor who built it. Laura and I were both very impressed by the building, the details, and the love that went into building it. It's crazy that this amazing work of art was created simply to house the emperor's wife's body after death. Literally all that are inside are two tomb stones, one of which is not even meant to be there (the emperor started building a matching black marble Taj Mahal across the river for his own body, however he was stopped by his son for being crazy and thrown in jail... mughal retirement home? haha)!

Colourful Saris

Laura and I, or should I say Puja (apparently Laura sounds very similar to the Hindi word for... penis! So our driver has renamed her Puja). We are now in the Rajasthan province of India. It is known as the area of palaces, forts, kings, and queens, however, what has been one of our best experiences thus far was meeting a group of women and children along the road. These villagers were working in the fields when we stopped quickly to capture Laura's ideal picture of beautiful colourful saris against a dusty brown backdrop. Instead of snapping their pictures and jumping back in our car, we were overwhelmed by an excited and friendly welcome from everyone. We were surrounded by people greeting us, wanting to say hello, shake our hands, hug us and touch our hair and pasty white skin. It was the strangest experience to be so adorned by a group of strangers who we could not even understand.

Culture Shock

I've heard of culture shock but culture switch is a new one. On a regular basis people here ask us "you from?" and Erin responds "Canada". The problem is she ALWAYS says it in a Britsh accent! I'm assuming this only confuses the locals even more. Why is this canadian girl speaking with a births accent. It makes me laugh everytime she does it. Oh the wonderful world of traveling. I heard it can do stange things to you bit this was icing on the cake. What wil this adventure bring next ?

The Five Senses of India

We put on our backpacks and have arrived!

Sights: Smog, homeless dogs, overpopulation of chipmunks, beautiful historical architecture, roadside shrines, roadside barber shops, cows wearing turbans, fires on the side of the road, peaceful and calming temples, and PASHMINAS. 

Sounds: car horns!, people asking if they could take our picture (x 100000000), compliments on our shoes (a ploy to get us to follow them, our sneakers are wack), sweet bollywood music (ex. Hosana), abrasive cellphone ringtones, spiritual chanting, 

Tastes: thirst, spice, dukoral, NAAN, chai, mango.

Touch: soft silk, bangles, crumbling stone.

Smells: cooking meat, pollution, street fires, urine, (but not shit!), incense.