Jaipur

No rest for the wicked, and frankly, after five days of yoga and holy sites, we were far from wicked. Nonetheless, we had to pop out of the protective hug of Varanasi's old town, into the mind-bogglingly congested streets towards the train station for a 16 hour journey west, to Rajastan and its capital, Jaipur.

I say 16 hours. But the train was one and a half hours late by the time it left. It was four hours late after 30km and by the time we reached Jaipur it had taken a bum-numbing 24 hours! Amazing to think that the world can do a complete rotation and we spent the whole thing sat (or laying pressed tight against the ceiling) on a train. Still, it wasn't such a bad journey. We spent the first few hours chatting to a lovely chap called Puni (apologies if the spelling is wrong), and with the ever interseting and often beautiful landscape changing outside the carriages, we slept like dogs and missed it all.

After a 24 hour train ride, we were pretty apprehensive about stepping off and facing the usual barrage of vultures attempting to lure us into their auto rickshaws. And it came as some surprise and releif to find that Jaipur's actually quite chilled and we didn't get any bother at all. In fact we both felt a little left out. Still, it got even better when we arrived at the Pearl Palace hotel which was bloody brilliant! Really comfy, good value and thee was even a strip of paper across the bog seat telling us that 'This toilet has been disinfected for your protection'. Lovely.

The hotel was easily the best we've stayed at so far. The owner, Mr Singh, has designed a lovely restaurantand its furniture on the roof, and even put together a very useful guidebook. This may seem quite dull, but as I (ant) have been responsible for lugging the Footprint Guide to Ïndia around, which weighs in at a colossal 392 lbs, I found this little guidebook a delight. Top marks Mr Singh.

Jaipur's notably wealthier than anywhere else we've been which may explain the quality of the hotel. There's quite a few cars and a lot less litter, and the roads can be crossed without falling down a giant crater...although crossing roads is still marginally more dangerous than space walks wearing only a velour tracksuit. So, we did the customary tootling. We tootled round the City Palace which had a brill armoury. Jenny's favourite was a serrated sword that was about a foot wide and 2 meters long. I went for the hatched with a pistol built into the handle. Then we tootled into the Maharaga's observatory which was an incredible sight, even for astrological cynics like us. We're sure there was all sorts of genuis method in these giant blocks of stone which told you where the stars were, but we were more than content going up and down the interesting looking ones, and being generally agog at the rest. We also tootled up and down a hill, which was very steep and far too hot for the likes of us. At the bottom of the hill was a dog which appeared to have had its eyes gouged out which was an unexpected and sad reminder that not all of the animals in India are revered.

Our most anticipated tootle was towards the Amber Fort, where we hoped we'd ride an elephant. It's probably fair to say that I would have done anything to have ridden an elephant, and so it was a bitter pill to swallow when we realised that the coach loads of liver-spotted coffin dodgers in front of us in the queue had worn the elephants out and we were forced to proceed on foot. I was consoled by Jenny and we both decided that elephant rides were in fact barbaric and we'd rather give our money to our own adopted elephant who we've so far failed to visit.

India's got loads of forts and they're all incredible in their own special way. At Amber Fort we decided to go off exploring and found this to be lots of fun. We explored and explored and explored, and found all sorts of nooks and crannies which we probably weren't meant to. Still, you have to realise that this is preferable to listening to a guide. I can't knock their thoroughness, but really, I have no need to learn the dimensions of every single room in every single palace. Oh no daddyoh! Instead we stumbled across a viewing platform from where the Raj used to watch elephant fights. Elephant fights...sod the animal welfare, that would have been amazing!

Above the Amber Fort is the far more impressive Jaigarh Fort, more impressive mostly because it's huge and parked on top of a huge hill. But really, I'm sure you've heard enough about forts.

Tragically, during our stay in Jaipur, India were knocked out of the cricket world cup. This was a shame as there had been a real buzz about the place while they were still in the competition. The one consolation being that any mention of India's world cup failure can quickly put an end to unwanted conversations.

Oh, and we got ill! 'Hah!' we hear you shout, 'the smug sods have got Delhi belly'. Not quite, just a really unecpected and umpleasant cold which seemed a bit unfair as we edged towards the desert. We waited around Jaipur long enough to nail the colds, as we didn't want to be spreading our sniffles on our next jaunt...a safari in the faint hope of seeing a tiger.

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