Pushkar to Delhi and on to Singapore

Hello Lovely People

I hope you are all well.

Since we last wrote we have left the quiet town (relatively, for India anyway) of Bundi in a taxi (yes we copped out of public transport yet again) for Pushkar. Pushkar is a holy Hindu city with a sacred lake, supposedly for bathing but it was far too dirty and smelly for that and we didn't actually see anyone in the water thankfully. It is very much a tourist town and it was nice to have a choice of relaxing places to eat and hang out. Being such a Holy town there is no meat, eggs, alcohol, or embracing in public!! There were plenty of temples to visit when we were feeling like a bit of sightseeing and we also treated ourselves to a swim in a hotel pool, which made us feel like we weren't in India at all with so much flesh on display (all Western tourists of course).

The pool was the prelude to our two-night stay in a really very nice hotel called Neemrana Fort Palace (find it on Google, it's beautiful!), which was a fantastic treat at the end of the hard slog of travelling through India. We ate like kings and queens and lazed by the beautiful pool all day - bliss.

On the way to Neemrana we had half a day in Ajmer, where we visited a holy Muslim site, the tomb of a saint. This experience involved me being swept up in a crowd of sweaty pilgrims into a little room where the saint's tomb was located, whereupon a holy man threw a purple cloth over my head to bless me, whilst a teenage boy insisted upon pressing himself VERY close behind me for the duration of our time in the shrine (I had to use the Lonely Planet book for protection) until I managed to beat him off when I got out the other side of the room ten minutes later. On the plus side the tomb was beautiful white marble with huge, intricately carved golden gates, and smelt strongly of roses because of the masses of rose petal offerings brought in by the devout in big baskets on their heads.

After leaving the haven of the Neemrana Fort Palace, it was back to reality and the bustle of Delhi. We stopped off for a look at our last sight of India, the Qutb Minar in southern Delhi, which is a 73m high red sandstone and marble tower built in the 12th century next to the first mosque in India - quite impressive.

We are now in Singapore and loving how clean, efficient and organised it is! We can't stop marvelling at how lovely and clean the toilets are, how helpful the train station staff are, how everyone queues politely, how the cars drive within the marked lanes and that there are no mounds of poo and rubbish to dodge on the streets - what joy!! We are staying in Chinatown and enjoyed some delicious food from hawker stalls on the street near our hostel last night. Today we've been touring the shopping malls, Raffles Hotel and waterfront cafes and generally being in awe of the place.

Tomorrow evening we're off to Bali on the next bit of our adventure, and I can't wait to be on the first beach of our trip so far!

Lots of love to you all
Kirst and Tim xx

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