Not a Morning Person

This morning, we tried to get up early to go to the Vatican museums before our 1:45 train to Naples. However, neither Nez nor I are morning people, as we discovered. After our lovely (and now regular) wakeup from the cleaning lady, we had breakky then went to the station to leave our bags at the luggage place. After a half-hour trek through the depths of the station, we find the longest line ever--apparently it's no longer DIY luggage lockers. Since we were short on time, we were NOT about to wait in that line. We schlepped back to the hostel, and instead, left our bags there. At this point, we only had about an hour and a half, and the museums were not going to be visited. We decided to cut our losses and just relax before our train, so we shopped for a bit, and I fell in love with two Italian men: their names were Dolce and Gabbana.

We picked up our bags, and were a bit late leaving for the station. We literally had to sprint to our train, but we made it. Barely. The conductor blew the whistle as we stepped onto the train--now that's backpacking talent. Just in time!

After we got to Naples, we had to take an hour-long "Circumvesuviana" to get to Sorrento. I figured it was a regional train--slower, but no problem. We got to the station and discovered the 1 hr "regional train" from there to Sorrento is actually an above-ground subway. That my Eurail pass is not valid for. So I had to buy a 4 Euro ticket. (I really think my pass was less and less of a good deal, the more I use it and get told it's either not valid or I have to pay extra for the reservation).

We get on the train (if you can call it that) and are crammed like sardines, with no ventilation. We discover after boarding that we've boarded the wrong train. Of course.

After correcting our mistake and enduring a miserable hour and a half journey down the coast, Nez and I arrived in San Agnello, a small town just outside of Sorrento. The hostel directions sucked so we walked around a bit. We got a great photo of this tiny truck before getting busted by the owner, who turned out to be very proud instead, and offered to take a photo of us on the back--as long as we took one of him after. Got some great gelato then made it to the hostel, which is amazing. Makes the one in Rome look like a halfway house. Met some great people in our room (Aussies, of course) and all had dinner together--did I mention the hostel makes incredible food? A bunch of us are gonna see Pompeii tomorrow. I can't wait!

Mediterranean, You're Kind Of Big

Sept 16:I'm going to refrain from the joke here; it's too obvious....thatswhatshesaid. Okay! Moving on. Today was a travel day to Nice. I left at 8 am after not going to bed the night before, so sick, and had to change trains every couple of hrs so couldn't sleep at all. Got to Montpellier and had to buy new reservation for train from there to Nice, since they wouldn't do it for me in Spain. Of course, the train I need is full, so I have to wait two hours til the next (non-reserved) train departs. I met two Aussies from Darwin who were doing the same thing, so we navigated the rest of the trip together.

The last train from Marseilles was really sketchy--no light, so were just sitting in the pitch black with strangers going through tunnels. Brought back memories of my favorite travel movie, Eurotrip. Mi scusi! We finally arrive in Nice at about 10:30 pm, only for me to realize my pouch containing my sunglasses and phone is missing. Shit. Back to the train I go! I couldn't remember exactly where we were sitting since it was no reservation, so I searched. Every. Single. Compartment. Hoping the train wouldn't start moving while I was still on board. At last, I found it! Fallen between two seats. Mon Dieu!

I called the hostel which told me to take the tram to a certain stop, where their shuttle would pick me up. I finally arrived and collapsed into bed--folks, the med is a lot bigger than you may realize if traveling by train! 15 hrs is not fun, especially on zero hours of sleep.

The Train in Spain is Mainly a Pain

(Spain Day 1) See what I did there? Enough with the My Fair Lady references...we are in the land of Carmen! Fun fact: The plot of the opera came from Seville, where a Christian soldier was dating the most beautiful girl in town (Carmen) who dumped him for a bullfighter (way more badass, I'd do the same thing). He went crazy and killed her and her family, felt bad, and killed himself. Typical man...so dramatic. Holding a boom box above his head would have conveyed the same emotion. If you want to get acquainted with the story, Beyonce made a hip-hopera for your viewing pleasure. Youtube it..

I flew from Cairo to Madrid, almost dying of dehydration on the plane (did you know the air in the cabin has less water in its oxygen than the desert? I love the sips of water they ration you every two hours because you can't bring liquids on the plane, like that's going to do anything in this environment...) get to Madrid, still not sure if want to stay or go to the south. After a lengthy conversation with a Spanish couple on the plane, I decide to go to Seville, but need to get to the train station. (Seville, the home of a certain Barber, if you're familiar).

I take a bus from airport and make my way to the ticket counter to buy a Eurail pass. I priced it out and I will end up saving quite a lot by having this pass. I can buy it for only the countries I need, so it costs less than a global pass, and will be much cheaper than buying individual tickets.

I wait in the ticket line only to be told I can't buy a Eurail pass at this train station. I have to take the metro to another station. I manage to navigate this, then decide to take the last train to Sevilla at 21:30. Have been up since 5 am. Get to Seville at 12:05. Haven't booked anything so I head to the first place in my guidebook (side note: Lonely Planet is not the best book for the budget traveler. Their hostel suggestions are lacking--just a general observation. Let's Go is much better, but they don't have as many books).

The taxi driver doesn't know where it is so he drops me in a downtown square saying it's close and points vaguely in one direction--I think he just wanted to get rid of me. Thanks for being concerned about my safety! I wander around for a bit and am not having any luck. I'm going to have to take up residence under a bridge! Finally, I ask some people I overhear speaking English, who take me through dark alleys to an unmarked door I would never have found on my own. Success! Just kidding. I get inside and they're booked. Crap. But he calls their other property and find me a bed there, so I haul my stuff ten mins down the street to the Oasis Palace. Cheesy name but at 1:30 am I just want a flat space to pass out on. Exhausted after a 20 hr travel day, I've made it; I'm in Europe!

The Taj in 24 Hours

Travel day: Jodhpur to Agra. We took a 12 HR train ride today so we could get to Agra at night, stay over, and be up to see the Taj at sunrise the next day. We literally sat there for the entire day, so not much to write about. When we got out of the train station, many drivers came up asking if we needed a ride (as usual) and one guy was particularly friendly, so James agreed to go with him. I try to stay out of these decisions since I think it'd compromise james' ability to bargain down the price. We asked how much, and the driver said "no problem. I take you first, then you pay as you like." Big mistake. He was super friendly, and told us about all these hotels he knew for a good price, but we knew they do this and have commission deals with the places they mention, so we told him had a reservation at the first place on our list and went there to check out a room. India 101: never book ahead until you've seen a room. There are no assumptions here, including standards of cleanliness.

Turns out the place we wanted was full, and we didn't really know many other places, so we agreed to go look at this place the driver suggested. James went inside to look, and I stayed in the car with the luggage and driver. It was fine for a while, but James was gone for a long time and the driver started getting creepy, telling me about his workout plan and flexing his muscles. Thankfully, James came back shortly after to say the room was fine-we were only here for one night- and I took my bags inside. The driver had been trying to convince us to hire him for the day tomorrow to take us to all the major sights, but we knew his price was obscenely expensive so I let James decline for the both of us. I headed inside at a good moment apparently, because the driver got extremely upset. It didn't help that James paid him 100 rupees for the ride from the station. Sorry buddy, but if you didn't quote a price ahead of time and say "as you like", sometimes you're gonna get tourists who actually know what things cost. Can't scam us, we've been in India too long!

James came inside and relayed this development to me, just as the driver walked in behind him, past the check in counter, and into the hotel restaurant, where he also works. SHIT. we spent half the night terrified our food was poisoned, and the other half waiting to hear the lock on the door turn. I definitely checked to make sure my limbs were still intact the next morning. Lesson learned: be very wary of drivers that seem too nice, because they probably are.

We woke up at 5:30 am to make it to the Taj Mahal for 6 am, when it opens for the day. 750 rupees for entrance is highway robbery, but I guess that's what a Wonder of the World costs nowadays. After dodging the annoyingly persistent guides trying to get our business, we headed to the entrance. Since this was the main attraction and the whole reason we came to Agra, we had packed snacks so we could stay for most of the day. Of course food isn't allowed, and there's no signs to indicate this. Thatd be too efficient. There were storage lockers a 5 minute walk away, and I was not about to waste perfectly good granola bars. I peeled a banana on the way over, only to come face to face with a particularly aggressive looking monkey who was staring me down. I attempted to deak him out, but he bared his teeth and growled, so i hurled said banana in the opposite direction and booked it. I arrived at the storage room only to find out it costs money. Of course. Out of principle, I refused to pay, and ate my granola bars sullenly as I made my way back to the entrance. Bureaucracy...

We finally got into the grounds and began walking when I caught my first glimpse of the domed roof sparkling in the distance. I'm rarely awestruck, but the Taj has to be up there with one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. It's so perfect, it doesn't look real. It looks cartoon-I felt like I had stepped into the world of Aladdin or something.

For those of you that don't know, the story goes something like this: after the Shah Jahan's wife Mehmtez Mahal died giving birth to their 14th child, he was heartbroken. He built the Taj Mahal as a memorial to her. It took twenty thousand workers over 33 years to build the structure. When his son grew up he overthrew the father and imprisoned him in Agra Fort across the river, where the Shah was forced to look at his creation every day until he died there.

After we exhausted our photographic options at the Taj, we got tired of the touristy atmosphere (if it was this crowded at sunrise, I shudder to think of what it must be like during peak hours), so we decided to check out the Agra Fort. My dashing good looks awarded me free admission for being 14 and under, so we wandered around there for a bit, but it wasn't very impressive, especially having seen the fort in Jodhpur and the Taj itself.

We saw signs for a golf course so we decided to check it out. How cool would it be to play 9 with the Taj in the background? Unfortunately, Indian logic proved too much for us to handle, and we decided a thousand rupees plus a mandatory caddie, and no left-handed clubs (I'm difficult, I know) was not worth it.

We pretty much exhausted our options for activities in Agra at that point--it really hasn't got much to offer other than the Taj, so I'm really glad we only spent one day there. I got some postcards and we hung out at a coffee shop, writing while it rained outside. We had dinner at Pizza Hut before catching our first overnight train to Varanasi, where we're spending the last three days before flying to Nepal.

Dirty Delhi and Train Travel

In India, two important things to know: 1) people will always try to rip you off, and 2) the hotel never looks like the pictures. We arrived at the airport in Delhi just before midnight. Our hotel was the only one we actually booked ahead of time, since we did not want to be going from place to place looking at rooms in the middle of the night. After we failed to connect with the hotel pick-up that was supposedly sent for us, we opted for a pre-paid taxi. My travels have shown me so far that these are generally more expensive than negotiating with a driver, but only if you know the proper value for the ride you're taking. We were quoted anywhere from Rs 250 to 400 for the exact same ride, so we were immediately suspicious of negotiating this when we didn't know how far away the hotel was from the airport.

We arrive at the hotel we booked and it is in a seedy area of Delhi that I would not want to be in during the day, much less at night. The room was dingy and the bathroom smelled like mothballs, but we were only there for about 6 hours--we had an early train to catch the next morning.

Train travel in India is a unique experience. I'm not sure if it was the lack of signs anywhere, the throngs of people sleeping on the platform, or the wafting aroma of excrement coming up from the tracks because, oh yeah, the train toilets are just holes in the floor of the car. So whenever people use one, it comes out on the tracks. Lovely. This attracts rats, which are scurrying everywhere. We had help buying our tickets from a man I was working with at the charity in Shantimalai, and thank goodness, because there is no such thing as a line in India, as I may have mentioned before. We had to find our coach number and then our bunks inside, which, in a rare shining moment, actually turned out to be nicer than I expected. The train station probably set my expectations so extremely low, they could only be exceeded.

My sleeper bunk on the train

6 hours later and we arrived in Jaipur, also known as the Pink City. I had read about this place called Krishna Palace on wikitravel, so we decided to give it a shot. They offered free pick-up from the train station, so we were already off to a good start. We arrive and it is quite literally an old palace that has been converted into a hotel. They showed us a room, which was pricier than the website said, but then offered us a cheaper room on the roof--it was the only one up there, so it was very quiet. Lots of stairs, but I could definitely use the exercise. I'm so happy we took it. This place turned out to be the best hotel we've stayed in. Large rooms, AC, marble everywhere, wifi that actually works in the room (most places tell you they have it, but it only works in certain areas like the lobby, which makes skype kind of awkward). The staff was friendly and helpful, arranging the rest of our train tickets and hiring a car for half a day to show us some of the sights in Jaipur.

At the Amber Fort The afternoon we arrived, we went to see the lake palace and the Amber Fort, which is on the outskirts of town.We were too late to go inside but walked up as it's on a hill and looked around. Great views of the city from here. It looked like whoever built this fort tried to also build India's response to the Great Wall of China. That's all we had time for before it got dark, so we headed back to get some rest. Jaipur may be the Pink City, but it's not the most exciting city on the planet.

See? Great Wall of India!

Lake Palace in Jaipur