Lucknow; actually, its sometimes best not to look at all.

Ok then, this should be a good one.

We've left Varanasi and the relative safety of the rooftop restaurants and hotels. The journey to the centre of Uttar Pradesh, and its capital city, Lucknow was pretty good all said and done. 6 hours on a train in pretty decent conditions on the slightly higher cost 2AC seats. It meant we all had a bed each basically; far removed from the usual picture of Indian trains.

We arrived in Lucknow abit too late really, but we had now choice because of the transport options. We emerged from the station bright eyed and bsuhy tailed, only to be pressed into submission by the chaos and ... im gonna say it - squalor of the surrounds. We checked out a few places to stay with the help of a young rickshaw driver who seemed to know the city as well as we did, and eventually landed on a place close to Mahatma Gandhi road. The late meal was a relief.

Second day, we set about trying to ensure we could escape from the capital with as much ease as we'd dropped into it. Searching for trains on the few rail websites was fruitless, as was the trip to the station (the ticket office appeared to close on Wednesdays), as was the trip to the coach station. Lucknow is clearly not much of a tourist destination. We wandered around alot that day, and basically got nothing sorted except a change of hostel because the first was too expensive and far from our intended transport station.

The next day, with clearly no hope of leaving that day, Chris and John went to sort the train tickets at the station again, and succeeded! We were on the lowest class of carriage, but it was booked for 5 am the next morning... joy! With the rest of the day we checked out the historic site of the Residency; an estate just outside of the city that was the stage for a very important seige in the 1857 Indian Uprising / Frist War of Independence (you decide which one). This was probably the most relaxing place we've found in India so far, just open grounds, pleasant setting, and you can only just hear the road... bliss!

We also went to the second of Lucknow's two attractions in the afternoon, the zoo. Not a bad zoo, just like the Lonely Planet says. Plenty of animals in massively overgrown enclosures, a little train, quite a fair bit of rubbish, and the star attraction which everybody in the place loved; the three western lads milling around. It got quite hilarious at times, as we'd walk towards to the hippo's and there would be entire families stood at the enclosure barriers, but they were simply staring at us three... its something we're having to get used to.

So the journey to Agra the morning after (this morning) wasn't too bad, alot better than expected, and now we're staying just about 500m from the Taj Mahal. But we haven't managed to really see much else today, as we're all knackered and John and Chris are pretty ill as well. So we've just slept and played with the mice in our room, haha!

We'll let you know how Agra is, namaste! Johnny