Greetings from the Pink City!

Hello again!

We are now in Jaipur, Rajasthan after a GREAT few days :)
Jaipur is known as the Pink City because the entire city was painted pink in 1876 to welcome Prince Edward, and they have kept up the tradition! Well, its actually more of a ochre colour, but we're not fussy :) Spent this morning at Amber Fort, which used to be the capital of rajasthan and was built in 1592. The palace is lovely, with some really well preserved carvings, but was a bit hard to compete with the Taj Mahal!

Yep, the Taj was just as fantastic as everyone says. Photos just do not do that place justice- it is absolutely perfect in every way. For those who don't know, the Taj was built by Emperor Shah Jahan from 1631 to 1652 to honour his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to her 14th child! poor woman! He is said to have been so devestated by her death that his hair turned grey overnight. Over 20,000 people built the Taj over the 21 year period, with experts from all over Asia being called in to help. The beauty of this marble masterpiece is that it is entirely symmetrical- except for the grave of Shah Jahan himself. The Taj was only ever built for his wife, but then Shah's son overthrew his father and imprisoned him in Agra Fort for 8 years. When Shah Jahan died, his daughter was left to bury him, and could not afford a new monument, and so she buried him next to his wife in the Taj. Kind of a final insult isn't it, wrecking his perfect architecture. We all just fell in love with the Taj, and so stayed for sunset on Boxing Day, and then returned on the morning of the 27th for sunrise as well- absolutely amazing being pretty much the only people in the entire complex.

We also visited Agra Fort on Boxing Day, which was built by Shah Jahan's grandfather in 1565, and in which the next 4 generations (including Shah) lived. This place was amazing as well! There are seperate sections throughout the fort complex for the kings numerous wives, a huge garden and apartment complex for his concubines, perfume baths, mirrored palaces, beautiful terraces- they definitely didn't do it tough! We really don't know how they had any time to fight wars and things, what with all the dancing, drinking and "entertaining" lovely young women! Apparently one of the king's favourite games was to play a version of chess, with real beautiful women as the pieces.

On the 27th we visited Fatehpur Sikri, which is another massive abandoned city. This one was only the capital for 14 years, due to the fact that they built it in the middle of a desert with very poor water supplies! There is a beautiful mosque called Jama Masjid on the site, which is still used today, and has the biggest entrance gate in asia. Very impressive, but there is this STUPID belief that bee poo is lucky, and so they have placed all these bee hives at the top of the gate, and we were covered in bee poo!! Had never even thought about bees doing that- and it is pretty gross!

We got to try paan in Fatehpur Sikri, which is a leaf filled with various nuts, tobacco and just plain weird stuff! Maddy and I had the local men very entertained as we tried to chew the stuff without throwing up or spitting it out! But they wouldn't give us the version which makes you hallucinate- chickens!

On the afternoon of the 27th we went to Keoladeo Ghana National Park, which is a bird sanctuary- cliff was in absolute heaven! We had 100s of bird photos, just had to cull some before! We also got to see an antelope really really close, and a few jackals as well, which, i must admit, were much more exciting than the birds for me!

Yesterday we went to a town called Madhorgarh, which is kind of off the normal tourist trail, and so was a really unique place to visit. We stayed at an AMAZING old fort, built in the 15th century, and cliff and i were lucky enough to score the honeymoon suite- which used to be the maharani (queen's) rooms when she stayed there. I felt very princess-like :) Had a lovely afternoon wandering around the village, and then a great dinner with Rajasthani music and dancing. And we all got to dress up- yay!

Which brings us to today :) Have just returned from a slightly stressful shopping expedition in the old city, where the cycle rickshaw driver got totally lost, seperated us from maddy and andrew and then didn't understand enough english to get us back to our hotel! but we made it :)

Am absolutely loving Rajasthan- has the most amazing scenery, and the colours (ie the clothes people wear, the buildings) are just amazing. I think we are enjoying ourselves a bit more in the north, but that propbably has a lot to do with the fact that we are all fit and healthy again! But just loving it here, may not come back :)

ok, my photo cd has finished burning, so will leave you all now. Hope everyone is well, and that you all have a great new years! Will be in touch soon.

lots of love,
lauren and cliff
xxxxx

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