"Even the nice hotels in India are a little ghetto."

Catching up on some pictures from Varanasi first, post follows.These are the musicians from the classical music performance on New Year's Eve.

Beautiful silk being sewn at the silk factory.

The stupa near the place where Buddha gave his first sermon in Sarnath.

The Bodhi Tree (or an offspring thereof) -- the tree under which Buddha sat and meditated.

Boat on the Ganga with very colorful clothes drying. People do their washing in the Ganga, which seems unwise. However, I love all the colors!

We have decided on partial list of what makes a hotel in India nice, since today, we're staying (for half the day and no night, weirdly) in the nicest one we've been in so far. So, a nice hotel has: a space heater, hot water that does not run out mid-shower, towels, soap, toilet paper, a curtain to separate the shower from the toilet, and a shower set up in such a way that the entire bathroom floor does not end up wet (only half of it does), and meat that appears to be safe to eat. Most of these, I'm noticing, revolve around bathrooms. :) However, since this is India, even a nice hotel has to have a weird touch, evidenced by the photo below -- that's a tub under the AC unit coming out of our room. Silliness.Anyways, yesterday (while we were still in Agra, in a less nice hotel than today -- no hot water), Mu felt better and we were able to go see the Taj Mahal! It's really as amazing as everyone says, and we took loads of photos (only a few of which I'm including here -- you all know what the Taj Mahal looks like, I assume, and there are better photographers than us). It's really much cooler in person than in pictures, though -- so grand and majestic from a distance, and amazingly detailed work up close. The mausoleum, which is considered sacred and thus photos are not allowed, has very delicate-looking marble carvings, which is hard to imagine were done without computer aid. The inlay work is also quite impressive, with flowers and different geometric shapes and things, all identical and perfectly symmetrical. It's really a work of art, plus an amazing display of arrogance on the part of Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who thought up the whole thing. I mean, how, in the 1600s, does one envision that such a thing is possible, and then find people to carry it out? Anyways, we were impressed.Some of the amazing detail work

The rest of the day was spent lazing about, as Mu was still recovering. I had an interesting conversation with the owner (?) of the internet cafe, which ranged in topics from what is meant by "karma" (it means "action" and there are 3 categories -- from intelligence, passion, or ignorance) to his travels (in the 70s, he spent 6 months driving from India to Germany with a random woman from Tucson who he met while she was traveling in India herself) to the tiger sponsored by Bill Clinton at the park we went to today (after sending it money for years, Clinton asked for a photo. At this point, the park officials realized they couldn't find the tiger, or 22 others, who had apparently been poached.). I also ate more yummy food at the hotel restaurant (I did not eat anywhere else in Agra, weirdly enough -- everything was either too far for me to want to go alone, or there were aggressive shop owners outside and I didn't want to encourage them), played video games, and was otherwise lazy. It was nice, for the most part.

This morning, we cancelled our train and hired a car to take us to Ranthanbore Park, where we would go on a safari. Because this is the foggy season, trains have been super late. This mostly doesn't matter for us, but today, we didn't have that much leeway between the train's arrival and the safari's beginning. The car trip was...long and suboptimal, over super bumpy roads through the fog, but at least we got there, safe and on time. Due to scheduling issues, we're only here this evening, which is almost sad, since the hotel we're at is super nice compared to everywhere else!

The safari itself was both nice and disappointing at the same time. We saw lots of wildlife -- deer, monkeys, peacocks, different birds -- and the weather was quite pleasant. However, we didn't see any tigers! Not an opportune time, I guess. Still, a little sad. We also saw lots of goofy camels along the road. They're actually used for transport here, genuinely, but they're such bizarre animals!
Now, we're relaxing for another hour or so, and then we're off to the train station and Amritsar, where one of Mu's coworkers will meet us and show us around for the next few days! I'm so glad Mu is feeling better!