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Published: January 4th 2010
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We caught a bus from Bundi to Jaipur which took 5 hours. We had read that the bus rides out of Bundi were bone rattlers so we booked ourselves tickets for the private bus (as opposed to the local bus - bit more comfortable for an extra 1 dollar) and made our way to the bus stand. The bus arrived roughly on time but to our surprise the bus drove on without stopping. The owner of the travel agency jumped on his motorbike in pursuit of the bus. That was the last we saw of it. The owner insisted that we get the next bus out of town. About an hour later a local bus turned up: the agency owner had a few words with the driver (and slipped him a 20 and gave us a complimentary chai for our troubles) and we were on our way. Needless to say the ride was an absolute bone rattler, I lost count how many times we were thrown in the air from our seats.
About an hour into our ride we were joined on the bus by a couple of young guys also going to Jaipur. These two guys spent at least
Patam Niwas Chowk
This depiction on this gate represents the monsoon 2-3 hours staring at us intently. This was a new level of staring for us!
The accommodation in Jaipur has been the best we’ve had in India. We spent the day in the Old City (Pink City). Today was the first day of rain we've had since leaving the UK 6 weeks ago!! The entire old city was painted pink in 1876 to welcome King Edward VII. We spent the morning at the City Palace with an audio guide (which helped immensely). The palace holds a large collection of royal costumes and armoury. The best exhibit was the pyjamas of Madho Singh I, he was 1.2m wide, weighed 250kg and had 108 wives!
In the afternoon we headed to Hawa Mahal, a pink honeycombed structure which was built to enable the ladies of the royal household to observe the goings on without being seen. This was a great people watching spot.
Our final visit for the day was to Jantar Mantar, an observatory with bizarre mammoth sculptures created in the 18th century by Jai Singh who measured time by the place the sun’s shadow fell upon the huge sundials and charted the annual progress through the zodiac.
The following day we made our way to Amber Fort. The day did not start well with an extremely pushy rickshaw driver who wanted to take us here, there and everywhere and then crashed into a motorcyclist. We eventually got to catch the local bus to Amber. This was impressive with at least 3 forts in the immediate area. Amber Fort or Palace was lovely, with the beautiful Hall of Victory which has inlaid panels and a mirror ceiling. On our way out we finally saw a snake charmer (the last one we saw in Varanasi was a disappointment, his instrument was broken so he pulled the snake out of the basket - did not have quite the same affect!).
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Bridget
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Hey Guys, Your trip looks amazing so far, loving all the photo's! Esp the ones of Nepal - incredible. Hope you're having a great time. Looking forward to catching up in London. Bridget x