Jaipur

We got to Jaipur and instantly found it relaxing and chilled. With an amazing hotel, (where we got a free upgrade and a nice pool), and a cool tuktuk driver who offered to drive us for £5 a day, everything was so much easier than we'd had experienced up till now.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

DAY ONE

We awoke in Agra at 5am, and made our way to our early morning train which we were told was 4 hours in a sleeper train. We sprung for class 2AC which means an air conditioned bunk bed. It's pretty much the best, but as we saw when we arrived, there's room for improvement. Our room, which was separated from the train corridor by a sheet, was shared with another bunk bed and a family who didn't like 

a) Jane sleeping near their 20yr old son,

b) me sleeping near their female family members.

After a delayed train and 5 hours, I offered around some polos and everyone started chatting about the finer points of Indian and British culture! 

Jaipur is called the 'pink city' as the old town is painted a salmon-y pink colour. We started the afternoon with a trip around the tourist trap bazaars, and moved on to the city palace.

The city palace was very interesting and since we were still reeling from our experience with the 13 year old wanna-be guide in Agra, we were helped by using our first audio guide. Jane got some nice henna done (see above), and then we tried to get a 2 minute tuktuk to the Wind palace; a famous building where the maharaja used to keep his 'close personal lady friends'. We had asked our driver to start the next day, so we got a random tuktuk driver...who thought the wind palace was a restaurant, and so a 30 minute comedy started, with us telling him the name and address, him agreeing, and driving on, only for us to get obviously further away and repeat the questioning...

We made it in the end...and it was great to look at. And elephants walked down the road in front of it.

Perfect.

Tired and hungry it was time to return to the hotel. Laughing about how inept the last driver had been, we hailed another tuktuk, and the both blankly looked at each other when asked where our hotel was. Or what it was called.

We had left all the details in our bags in the room, and so spent over an hour driving around the rough area, asking for hotel names, and finally going to another hotel to use the internet in order to track it down.

DAY TWO

The driver we met on the first day sent his friend instead, but he was chatty and friendly too so we didn't mind. First stop was the Amber palace; a sprawling castle of corridors, tunnels, rooms, and courtyard gardens. All of this overlooked a beautiful lake with an island garden... Very beautiful, and an easy place to waste an morning exploring.

We got lots of "hellos" and "goodbyes" from children excited to see us, and lots of initially timid handshakes from parents telling their children to go talk to us. As soon as one kid did it though, dozens wanted in on the action.

While the Amber palace is on a hill, we spent 30 minutes climbing further up to a fort which gave us even better views! You can see it in the background here...

And this was the view from the other fort! The Amber palace is huge! What we didn't realise until after we had hiked 30 minutes each way in the baking midday sun though, is that they are connected via an underground tunnel!

The top fort also had the worlds biggest wheeled cannon!

Having left the Amber palace area, we went to a sanctuary to meet some elephants!

SIDE NOTE... What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino?

Eleph-Ino.

Jane got smoochy with an elephant. Sort of jealous.

Climbing onto an elephant actually proved really tough! Jane went first.

You move up his trunk, and he then lifts you up. It's like climbing a tree that's moving upwards.... 

But we fed the elephants, stroked them, and went for a little wander...I hope it enjoyed it as much as we did.

While our driver tried unsuccessfully to convince us to come back to his house/shop, I tried to change the subject and asked how difficult it was to drive a tuktuk....and then... To my suprise,....

I GOT TO DRIVE A TUKTUK!!!!! (Video evidence available).

We finally got home, me now showing a beaming smile, and paid the driver 500, plus a 200 rupee tip (£7 in total). However he hadn't been told of our arrangement with the other driver. He wanted 2200 rupees. We told him of the deal, which he didn't believe so called his mate, (who was apparently drunk), and then after a quick argument down the phone, grudgingly accepted the money...

Jaipur has been great, but instead of for the sights like Agra and Dehli, it's mainly because of the random adventures it threw up...

We are loving India and can't wait for more!

Chris

Jaipur