4th March - to Agra

At breakfast today I meet Jane and Yvonne who had flown in this morning from Scotland - 2 more members of our India team. Chris from Norway came up, bleary-eyed from his long flight too, and that made 7 - just one more to come later in Jaipur. The others went out to the markets again, but I was still too tired, so spent the morning in my room, away from most of the heat and pollution. When we left in early afternoon I couldn't breathe very well, and I felt like I was suffocating and as if a heavy weight was on my chest. I put that down to the pollution - yeuk!

We took a mad tuk tuk ride with Deepak to the train station, which was also a total melee of people and noise. While waiting for the train I people-watched: porters and traders trundling along with square topped wooden carts, men and women carrying huge loads on their heads, women and kids squatting on the station surrounded by their wordly goods. I got a really good pic of a kid dragging a wicker basket along, who then sat on the filthy stone step and looked into his hands for a long time. He was joined by another little boy and they put their heads together - fab picture, newspaper material!!

We went through some dreadful slums on the way out of Delhi - crumbling grey walls, dust dirt, corrugated tin roofs on shacks, poverty everywhere. The countryside was dusty and brown, but with occasional green areas and quite a few deciduous trees. On the train we heard the "tomato soouup" man, which became a running joke for Jenny and Viv on all train journeys we took subsequently. 4 hours later we got to Agra and the hotel was a traditional Indian one - ever so slightly decayed and "colonial", but clean and serviceable, and I shared with Graziella. Again I couldn't breath properly which was rather distressing.