The Pink City

Handy tip for those a little more gifted than us: Never take an auto rickshaw from a one eyed man in India as it is scary as all hell!

We enjoyed a small lie in and headed out early morning for a very simple breakfast given our recent history. We then ventured out on the LP walking tour of Jaipur to soak in the culture, sights and sounds (lets not forget the smells!). Leanne got a little carried away on the soaking part and had to have her submerged foot quickly rescued by the bottled water from a puddle of unknown slop. (def always one eye to the road rule in India)
Jaipur is another very dirty, busy and chaotic city which we have come to realize is a feature of any city in a country with over a billion people but here the sky is blue and the pollution is noticeably less.
It is particularly interesting in many Indian cities to see so much "Wildlife", for instance in our walk today amongst the hustle and bustle of the city we came across wandering the streets freely, chickens, horses, donkeys, cows, oxes, goats, monkeys, camels and even an elephant
Jaipur is divided in two with Old Jaipur painted pink. This colour was chosen in 1876 as it is the colour associated with hospitality and it welcomed the arrival of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII)
The Old Jaipur city is full of Bazaars (or blocks) selling everything you could imagine with each street dedicated to a specific crafts. People are very friendly again here and we met a few great people but you must strike up the correct conversation or you end up once again trying to decline an offer of a trip to their shop or a taxi tour of the city sights.
In the middle of the day the temp was around 33 degrees so we took refuge in the public gardens (more of a dry grass park with rusty fences and a bit of rubbish).
As we sat back in the shade of a tree watching about ten different games of cricket, Leanne pointed out that she was the only women to be seen. Before long we were surrounded by teenage boys all wanting photos which we suspect Matt was chopped from as they all wanted to stand alongside Leanne. The attention was not flattering to Leanne in any way and so we made a swift exit from our "Park Haven"
We have just finished watching India beat Australia for the first time in Sydney and set them up well for the 3 game final which has lead to a lot of excitement here. No doubt this will mean even more cricket talk for us than normal (and believe us it’s a lot!) for the rest of our trip.
So it’s a sleeper train tonight to Udaipur so let’s hope for a "quiet" and relaxing trip.

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