Agra
We arrived, late, at a bus stop just outside of Agra at approximately 8.30am. The night bus's in India are not too bad & we both managed to get some broken sleep. We met up with another tourist at the bus stop & organized a tuk tuk to take the 3 of us into town for 200 INR each, a lot cheaper than the original asking price of 350 INR each.
At a glance, Agra looks a lot more established and maintained than Varanasi. The roads, pavement foot paths, building structures & facilities look better. There also appears to be less poverty & less rubbish, we also saw green skip bins. We didn't see any bins or rubbish facilities in Varanasi, as a result rubbish was everywhere! There seems to be less people and a more relaxed and happy vibe about the place. Everyone is more inclined to smile and wave here.
We are staying in a hostel close to the Taj Mahal & Agra fort which we will visit tomorrow. The streets in this suburb are full of hostels & cafes. We had no problems finding our accommodation or checking in.
Once showered we went to a local cafe for brunch and had banana pancakes with coffee, delish!
We arrived, late, at a bus stop just outside of Agra at approximately 8.30am. The night bus's in India are not too bad & we both managed to get some broken sleep. We met up with another tourist at the bus stop & organized a tuk tuk to take the 3 of us into town for 200 INR each, a lot cheaper than the original asking price of 350 INR each.
At a glance, Agra looks a lot more established and maintained than Varanasi. The roads, pavement foot paths, building structures & facilities look better. There also appears to be less poverty & less rubbish, we also saw green skip bins. We didn't see any bins or rubbish facilities in Varanasi, as a result rubbish was everywhere! There seems to be less people and a more relaxed and happy vibe about the place. Everyone is more inclined to smile and wave here.
We are staying in a hostel close to the Taj Mahal & Agra fort which we will visit tomorrow. The streets in this suburb are full of hostels & cafes. We had no problems finding our accommodation or checking in.
Once showered we went to a local cafe for brunch and had banana pancakes with coffee, delish!
We made small plans to organise the rest of our time in India, attempt to book some transport tickets and avoid the midday heat which will peak at about 44 degrees today.
While avoiding the heat I noticed that our hostel advertised for henna tattoos, Ive never had it done before, what better place to do it than India!
Before long I was sitting in the lounge room while a daughter painted my hands and her mother did my feet. The traditional henna tattoo is called mehndi in India and gained popularity in the Western World as henna back in the early 1990's. Mehndi is a plant that when picked, dried and turned into a paste creates a temporary red coloured skin dye with medicinal properties, it originated in Africa and the Middle East and was first used as a make up with evidence of it's use 5000 years ago.
Mehndi is culturally significant for Hindu people, using it as hair dye and creating intricate patterns on their hands and feet during celebrations.
Most importantly the mehndi is used in Hindu wedding celebrations and must be applied to the bride & in some cases the groom.
No Mehndi - No Marriage!
A day before the wedding the bride and her family and friends will gather for the Mehndi ritual, the brides palm's, hand's, wrist's and feet will be coloured in. The colour should be deep and dark, a sign of a prosperous marriage & the outcome of the mehndi on the brides palm's is a sign of how much her mother in law loves her.
After the wedding, a new bride is not expected to do any of the housework until after her mehndi has faded away.
The owner of the hostel joked that I needed to find a groom tonight now that I have the Henna tattoo's. Lol, thats your queue Tom ;)
- Alli
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