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Published: January 29th 2009
Jaipur
Hawa Mahal25th January 2009
Surviving the Indian Army on the train, we arrived in Jaipur at 5am. We grabbed a rickshaw to our accomodation and happily slept until lunchtime. Jaipur is part of the Indian Tourist Boards heavily advertised 'Golden Triangle' - alongside Delhi and Agra - so we were excited about getting out and exploring it. Our first attempt at exploring, however, wasn't particularly successful, as we were at the end of a VERY busy road, away from the Old City which is where much of the heritage is...we ended up having our first McDonalds for lunch to avoid the smog and the touts...so we returned to the hotel soon after for a recce, and replanned. An hour before sunset we set off on our own version of a walking tour through the Old City. We naturally got lost but discovered why this was called the Pink City. Not quite on the scale of the 'Blueness' of Jodhpur, but still very pretty. We wandered aimlessly for a few hours, Hayley bought some bangles (already broken!), Daniel bought some Pakora (fried vegetable ...stuff..?!) and we shared some Chickoo (Indian Kiwi Fruit) with a monkey. By shared, we mean we were robbed. We
Jaipur
Tickled Pink... walked back to our hotel room, meeting some very interesting characters along the way...we won't say more than that on them as there may be children reading...
26th January 2009
We're now into our final week in India, so today started as an organisation day. We bought our bus and train tickets to our final destinations, and booked some accomodation. Done by lunchtime, we took a local bus to Amber Fort, around 11km outside the city. Hayley managed to wangle a seat with the Driver, Daniel made do with the standing 'crowd'. We'd guess there were around 70-80 people on a 30 seater bus. On the way, H informed D that we passed Elephants and Lake Palaces, but all D saw was armpits! Amber Fort is another HUGE hilltop fort, which is very impressive and imposing from a distance. But having climbed the 20 minute route to the top, it flatters to decieve a little. One thing we haven't mentioned about India, is something they call 'Eve Teasing', which was particulalry bad in this city. Eve Teasing is where certain males feel it is a given right that they should be able to touch/harrass/shout at etc. females in the
Jaipur
Amber Fort street. Although H has experienced mild cases of this as we have travelled, it came to a head a little bit here at the Fort, which also tainted our views of it perhaps. We think the guy learnt his lesson however...it's not fun being beaten up by a girl!
Later that evening, back in the City, we had dinner at Handis Tandoori Restaurant. Good god - it was amazing!! We ate the best tandoori chicken (a whole one!) in about 30 seconds flat, our faces covered in red chicken by the end! It was classy. After that, we managed to squeeze in an ice cream, and then slept.
27th January 2009
With a bus at our next stop - Delhi - at 1430 today, we decided to make the most of our morning and headed toward the old city once more. We started at Hawa Mahal, which was built as a Palace for the Ladies of royalty to watch street life without being seen. From here we went to a very strange place, called Jantar Mantar. This is an observatory built in 1728, with lots of amazing (and comically big) instruments for measuring astronomy. It included a 27m high
Jaipur
Jaipur Streets Gnomon - a sundial.
After meeting the strange people the previous night, it was nice to have a rickshaw driver who merely thought he was a pirate, who took us to catch our bus! 8 hours later, and 2.5 hours late, we arrived back in Delhi, for an overnight stop before catching an early morning train. It was strange to be back, especially so late as it was very quiet....we did get to see some puppies that we had met on our first night in Delhi - how they'd grown! We went back to a cafe we knew for a late night dinner, set our alarm for 630am, and then crashed for the night.
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Butch
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Ha Ha Coler the bruiser
Hey Kids, it's snowing and its about 2-3 inches deep yay :-) not quite the shorts 'n' t-shirt weather you seem to be constantly in, although DC you are looking more and more Indian by the blog post. Good to see HC is not letting the bad knee get in the way of a good scrap, DC did you film it, was it a fight club stylie ring with spectators circling the battle and more to the point did you make any money from the fight? Rock’n’Roller anyone?