India!

Stephanie and I have been in India for four days now, moving at a fast and furious pace. Delhi, to our surprise, was fogged in and cold, weather that I wasn't exactly prepared for. Stephanie quickly bought three shawls and we managed to keep fairly comfortable with those. Our first full day in India found us on a cold, rainy and foggy drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was three hours by car to get there and then five hours back because we hit rush hour traffic everywhere. Every manner of vehicle competes for space on the roads here, the most ubiquitous are the motorized rickshaws that are usually crammed to frightening capacity.

The Taj was gorgous, but hard to photograph becuase of the fog. It's a white marble building and there was very little contrast with the sky, so I hope I can compensate in Photoshop when I get back. The Taj was very crowded, but there were very few foreigners. Stephanie was quite a hit there, with many people stopping to ask to take a photograph with her. It was like travelling with a celebrity. Apparently they don't see a lot of black people there!

Now we are in Udaipur at the Taj Hotel, the former summer palace of the king. It's pretty darn spectacular and we spent a fun new years eve here with a big party in the courtyard outside of our room and a fireworks show at night from the roof garden. We finally recovered from jet lag last night, both of us having enjoyed a nine hours rest! Today we are imaging ourselves to be royalty, lounging around the palace, but we are off again this afternoon to head to Pondicherry where we will spend two nights. It's warm and sunny here during the day, but cold at night, so we are looking forward to going further south where we expect it to be warm all the time. Of course, down there the mosquito problem will be worse. I'm not looking forward to lathering on DEET all day and night, and I'll start my malarie medication soon too. So far we are both happy and healthy and hope to stay that way.

More from Pondicherry and pictures too, soon!