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Published: December 31st 2009
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Perhaps the only bad thing about having a driver is that you don’t spend as much time walking around the cities you visit; you get ferried from monument to monument to hotel. When we travel we like to spend time just aimlessly wandering around cities as we feel that this is how you truly get to experience a country; so after our driver dropped us at our hotel we farewelled him for the night and set off on a walk to MI Road which seemed to be full of restaurants according to lonely planet. However, after we asked our hotel where we were on the map we realized we were probably about 4km’s from MI Road so opted for a tuk-tuk instead..
As we were walking along the road being hassled by touts one of them commented on my outfit (one of the Punjabi suits I had tailored in Amritsar) and asked where I got it. When I replied ‘Amritsar’ he said that it was fantastic that we had been to Amritsar as not many tourists go there so we must have seen the ‘real India’. After talking to him on the roadside for a while we ended up walking
to his favourite chai shop and having a glass. Chai turned into thali’s (selection of curry’s, rice and roti) at a very busy local restaurant and suddenly it was 10.30 and time for bed!
The next morning (Christmas) we got up bright and early and headed to Amber Fort which is about 10km’s outside of Jaipur city. Our tour of Rajasthan included an elephant ride up to the fort; if it wasn’t included I think we probably would have walked up as it was a bit of a gimmick. The ‘charm’ (well, what was left of it after the whole gimmickey feeling) of riding an elephant up to a deserted fort was ruined when our driver started nagging us for a tip...
The fort itself was quite impressive, with long winding walls snaking their way along the mountains. We had the fort to ourselves for about the first 15 minutes which made the early start worth it. As the time went on the fort became overrun with tons of tourists and we decided it was probably time to head home and have breakfast.
After breakfast we set off for the Jantar Mantar observatory and City Palace. We
decided against buying tickets for the observatory as we could see most of it from the outside so headed over to the City Palace. The City Palace, though quite well preserved, was not as impressive as I thought it would be - but perhaps that was because I wasn’t really in the mood for sightseeing as the small cold I had woken up with was getting progressively worse as the day went on. We completed the audio tour of the palace and then headed back to the hotel so I could have a nap before meeting our driver at 5 to go shopping and then out to dinner.
By the time 5pm came around I still wasn’t feeling any better so we cancelled our shopping trip and ordered our best ever Christmas dinner - large McChicken burger meals from McDonalds...mmmm (at least it won’t be hard to beat next year!).
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