Yellow, Yellow, Dirty Fellow. White, White, Orbit White. It not rhyme but is true.

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Udaipur to Jaipur
Sion and Niki Hey all,

We are cheating a little on this blog, we're not actually in Jaipur anymore, and it's not actually the 11th its the 13th, but we had an early train yesterday and we didn't have time to spend hours slaving away in a tiny internet cafe trying to come up with bad jokes and stupid puns before we left, so i'm doing it now instead.

Good news first. We just had a close call. My memory card for my digital camera just started playing up and keeps telling me there are no files on it, which means i've lost abut 1000 shots of the whole holiday, but after much mucking about, we seem to have salvaged them. I have a CD here which aparently has all my photos on it, but i guess we'll see. It does mean however that if i want to keep taking photos, i have to buy a new memory card, makes me really glad i bought my SLR. At least you can only lose a 36 shots at a time with analog.

Jaipur was pretty special, for a big city, we had a fairly nice room with air-con and satellite tv, oh my god how i miss tv, and how glad i am we had air-con, it was sitting at about 42oC most of the five days we spent there, except for the freak thunderstorm that hit on the second night, that was kinda weird, there shouldn't be rain in the desert. We saw one of the biggest sun-dials in the world (about 27m tall, its shadow moves 4m an hour), and saw our first Bollywood movie. Wait for it.....'Shaka Laka Boom Boom'.....i don't think i need say anymore. But i will. From what we could both gather, pooling our imperfect interpretations of the Hindi feature that was presented to us, from our expensive pavillion 1 seats (there was only one pavillion so i don't quite know where they put you if you buy the cheap seats in pavillion 2) it was about a middle-ageing rock music superstar, riding the last wave of his fame, threatened by a hip up-and-coming youngster who wants to steal his limelight. He conspires against the youngster to derail his career and then for some reason they spend the night writing songs and the movie is over . hmmmmm....thats in the midst of a lot of deep and meangful close-ups of the stars evil eye look, which did n't help at all with the understanding of the plot, but i think it meant he might be evil, or lustful, or both, or upset, im not sure.

Anyway, enough of that, it's hurting my brain. What else did we do? There is a fort on the hillside surrounding Jaipur called Nahagarh or tiger Fort, it's about 8km by road or 2km by foot up the side of the hill. We decided to take to 2km hillside walk, but we weren't entirely sure how to get to the path, so off we went heading North-North-Westish off into the slums of Jaipur, as streets got smaller and smaller becoming alleyways, which became merely gaps betweeen peoples houses and abandoned ruins, we were convinced we were lost, we could still see the path up the hill, but had no idea how to get there. After circling for what seemed like eternity we found our little hill path and started our ascent, and it was worth it. The views of the entire city sprawled out beneath us, an endless maze of huts, houses, factories, temples, palaces and construction sites, tucked into every available space and surrounded entirely by mountains, it was special, and well worth the hours of wandering and the leg breaking trek up the hill. we got to watch the sunset over Jaipur, but it did its disappearing act again about five minutes before it hit the horizon, i think the sun has it in for us.

We also went to the Amber (Amer) Fort just out of the city, we bumped into a guy called David from Bristol at the Iswari Minar Swarga Sal (Heaven-Piercing minaret) who we had seen in a restaurant in Udaipur so we caught the bus there with him and hung out for a while, he seemed like a nice guy, but it was hot and we were tired and he had to catch a train so we didn't really get to know each other that well. The fort has changed a bit since last time, the square that we did the elephant ride in has been gutted, ripped up, and they seem to be redoing the plumbing and paving, its all looking a bit rundown, and there are no elephants anymore, but the main mirror gallery is still pretty special, and there is a nice garden inside.

Well, we're off to Pushkar! (Actually, I'm lying, we're already here....but I'll keep it a surprise for later) Stay tuned, because its going to be an exciting one - there are cows with five legs here!!! Freaky shit! Cyabye xxxxoooooo


P.S. Don't worry too much if you can't understand the title...its an ad for toothpaste...just picture a dentist with a thick indian accent and a cow with a smashin' smile. i was lost for words.

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Photos

Hawa Mahal
The Palace of the Winds

Ajmer Gate
The Old Pink City is surrounded by the city walls, this is just one of the gates that lead into it.

The Giant Sundial
The 27m high Gnomon of the sundial at Jantar Mantar, an observatory full of weird and wonderful astronomy devices that look like modern sculptures.

Sion and Niki
Us overlooking Jaipur from Nahargarh

Comments

[Ouaga]

Dirty fellow
I think Sion might be the dirty fellow after walking around the Jaipur slums in 42 degrees...

[jennifer]

view from the window
Niki and Sion the view from the window here is a mass of dark grey clouds lit from below by the setting sun. Although I often exprience rain now as a gift I am struck looking at your photos of the energy that light creates. I wonder who the sun dial was for and whether it actually fulfilled what was obviusly an intense desire to track light. We have celebrated Jan's birthday today and felt that the rain was an extra gift. Your storm in the desert creates images of water rushing down red sand and pooling to create a brief oasis. Please keep the images coming. We saw Sony yesterday and she told us how jealous she was of you both and was sure that the missing of us all was eased considerably by the excitement of the trip. Niki I am emailing you on your hotmail so please check that to. Missing you heaps, make sure there are photos of you two so that I can track the increasing ease and relaxation evident as you progress through this holiday.

[spanna]

mmm toothpaste
Sounds like you guys are still having lots of fun adventures ...... and I'm still jealous ;o) the highlight of my week was a 30th bday bash where we had to come as our favourite character..... andy dressed up as a ninja turtle it was extreme....... just imagine face paint, a 6 yr olds costume (shell and all) with some green lycra and a cricket box as a substitute for the bottom half of the costume to avoid a massive camel toe..... i haven't laughed that hard in a while;o) was that toothpaste add on tele? thats hilarious.... that photo of the path looks amazing.........you guys must be getting sooooooo fit doing all that walking- insane! 1 week left of holidays.... so sad :( rad times. love span. xxxx

[Jenny and Alex]

wooo
ahh :D miss u guys!!! i wish i could send you tv.....and maybe some cheese....mmm cheese, im at work so u can imagine how jealous iam of u bastards....well miss u long time, lots of love and hugs ( and maybe if i like you a nice fat sesh) jenny and alex