Jaipur

After being kept awake half the night to the sound of celebration the alarm woke us up at 4.45am!  We got our stuff together and bleary eyed headed downstairs in the dark and as I was telling Nic to be careful on the stairs I tripped and fell, luckily my backpack broke the fall, and it was I am sure hilarious to see!  Especially me then trying to get back up again with 23kg strapped to me!!!  We headed to the station on foot and got our train for our journey to Jaipur which was about 4 hours.  We saw many interesting sights on the way, especially coming out of Delhi where loads of people were squatted by the side of the railway track, we thought they were just chillin' out but then we realised this was the place where they did their business!!!   This was where the untouchables lived on the outskirts of the city and you could see the poverty everywhere, we could not even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to live in these conditions for a day, let alone a lifetime!!!

Arriving in Jaipur we bumped into Jimmy…..Jimmy knows everyone….he was full of it but we were too tired to be bothered to look for anyone else so we hired him for the day to take us around.  We ventured to his friends' restaurant which was not too great and we were the main course for the mosquitos who had a great feast!  After that we ran a few errands, bank, vodaphone, tour shop etc before some sightseeing around some ancient tombs of the royal family and the mirror temple, which was decorated by mirror tiles, and then off to the water palace which was very pretty, but there was some suspect looking creatures popping out of the water and I for one would definitely not want to end up in there in a hurry!!!

Again we were exhausted by now and headed back.  Along the way Jimmy's car door flew open, hitting a woman carrying a child, he did not stop and said she was fine, as Nicola and I just gasped and looked at each other in horror!!  We looked back and the woman was rubbing her arm, felt so bad :( Finally we were back at the hotel where we enjoyed banana, nutella pancakes before retiring for the night so we could be refreshed for our day tomorrow!

After a hearty breakfast of banana, nutella pancakes again, we negotiated a good deal for an auto rickshaw to take us to the Amber Fort, by the time we got 200 yards up the road the price had doubled as we did not want to go to his friends shops where he would be paid 30% commission, although as I tried to explain 30% of nothing is nothing as we were not going to buy anything!!!  He did not get this as I am sure had we gone we would have been hassled into buying something.  Although he was still cheaper then Jimmy and quite a funny character so we did not mind!  His name was Kaloo.

First stop was Amber Fort and its palaces which was huge and a really beautiful, interesting place which had amazing views across Jaipur.  We hired a local guide who was very passionate and enthusiastic, he showed us many special things we would not otherwise have noticed and at one stage even gave us a song and dance and got the snake charmer to perform for us, which was pretty awesome and a bit scary, but we managed to draw a large crowd as we were having our pictures taken and they all then started taking photos of us with our lovely hats on!!

We then moved on after a couple of hours to Nahargarth Fort or Tiger Fort as it translates to.  This involved a steep uphill trek on a cobbled road in the afternoon heat, not a good combination, and after being attacked by a group of street kids wanting photos and our water bottles and anything else we had we finally made it to the top sweaty and exhausted!!  However we had a great view from here of the city.  A storm was moving in so we decided to head back to the hotel for a freshen up and rest before dinner.

Dinner this night was at the Revolving Restaurant, thanks guys for the recommendation, was fun watching the scenery change as we rotated round, and the food was delicious, we tried a traditional dish of Thali to share, which is a lot of small dishes with bread so you have a taste of many different things, not sure what any of it was but it all tasted great!!  It was so cold in the restaurant and we had not bought anything warm to wear so the waiter came over and wrapped us both in a couple of tablecloths, so we were sitting in this posh restaurant wearing tablecloths.  Where else would this happen but in India!!  Love it!!!

Another late start today, we just cannot seem to adjust to the time zone here and are both all over the place!!  We left the hotel about 12ish and grabbed a rickshaw to take us to the Pink City to do a walking tour which we found directions to in the lonely planet.  This covered most of the sights in the old city, and after being totally lost for most of it, although this was fun in itself, and locals were very friendly and helpful here, we finally ended up at one of the landmarks we were looking for.  Hawa Mahal (Palace of the winds)  which was where the women used to go to look out through the honeycombed structure and people watch over the city.  The views looked over the city palace and Jantar Mantar (Observatory) as well as the forts and other parts of the city.  People kept stopping us to ask if they could have their pictures taken with us which was quite bizarre, apparently we look like bollywood stars ha ha we were obviously going for the tired, hot, sweaty, just got out of bed look ha ha!  We must be naturals :)

Moving on swiftly we covered the Jantar Mantar (observatory) where there was instruments used to measure time and many other astronomers tools for star gazing as the Raj was a keen astronomer.  We then finished our day at the City palace where the current Maharaja of Jaipur resides with his family to this day.