India leg

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We arrived early in the morning on Friday so we decided to stay in a hotel to get a few hours sleep. We found a place from our lonely planet guide book. It was called Eurostar hotel, it was close to the airport, had our own shower and air conditioning and most importantly of all it was clean!
On Saturday we left that hotel and went to another in central New Delhi, Karol Bagh. We had a very eventful taxi ride to it! Later that evening we went for dinner with the group we will be travelling with for the next 8 days.
Sunday we started our sight seeing of Delhi. We visited a Sikh temple (where we needed to cover our heads), a Muslim mosque (which holds 24 000 people), Delhi red fort and had lunch. I had a dosai (rice flour pancake) and Sean had a Thali (a set meal with rice poppadom and sauces) then we all traveled to Agra on the coach, the journey was 5 hours long.
On Monday we got up really early in the morning to see the Taj Mahal. It was everything I expected and more. We just sat there looking at it for 2 hours. The Taj Mahal is a memorial for Shah Jahans wife who died giving birth to their 13th child! ouch! After we spent the rest of the hot day at Red Fort in Agra and Baby Taj. We ate at a local restaurant (which kept having power cuts during dinner) we had a buffet style dinner.
Tuesday we left to go to Bharatpur in Rajastan we saw the home of Akbar the great who had 3 wifes (one Hindu, one Muslim and one Christian) and 300 mistresses. we stayed for one night in a hotel who tried to rip us all off at any opportunity.
Wednesday we visited a step well and a mandir that was destroyed by Muslims at some point in history. Then we continued traveling to Jaipur the capital of Rajastan where our hotel used to be a palace owned by the royal family (jackpot)! Later we met the group again and went for an orientation walk around the pink city, which was so busy I'll never complain about London again! I ate Lassi a sweetened yogurt drink. there were lots of beggers and people kept staring at me which I am slowly becoming used to in India, At first I felt famous but now I'm growing tired and fed up, staring to feel like I'm a weirdo! We had dominoes for dinner and then a very squished auto rickshaw ride for 6 of us for only 60 rupees which is less than a pound!!
Thursday we went to the amber fort and took a jeep ride some of the way. The hawkers at the fort were ridiculous! they were getting into the jeep when we first arrived to try and sell us stuff. People are constantly trying to talk to you on the street and they seem at first to be either curious or being helpful but then they try and sell you something when they've got you talking! There were elephants in the fort (bout 50 at least) giving rides to tourists, but it was very hot and the men riding them didn't seem to be being very nice to them. Later on our way to the city palace we saw a little boy probably around 9 years old doing magic on the street, he kept asking Sean assist him in his magic by blowing on things. We saw the palace of winds which was the east wall of the city palace, it was built so the royal women who couldn't go outside could see the streets but the people on the streets couldn't see them.
Friday we got the coach back to Delhi and we booked our flight from Mumbai to Surabaya (Indonesia). Walked around our town in Delhi (Karol bagh) and Saturday, after a cabbie who wanted more money and threatened to take us to the wrong terminal because the hotel told him wrong, we are at the airport waiting for our plane to Mumbai now. When we arrived at Mumbai airport and found our taxi a man seemed to be being helpful by putting our bags away for us, but then continued to ask very impolitely that he wanted coins for helping, when I gave him 4 rupees (which is about 5p) he turned his nose up at it (he wasn't the first to do this, but we were getting annoyed with the amount of people who would just talk to us and expect money) so I said if he didn't want it he didn't have to have it and I took it back (I've wanted to do that before)! We arrived at Hotel Moti International in Colaba Mumbai and met the owner Raj, he was nice and friendly. For the rest of the day and night we went to Leopolds just around the corner (Which is in Shantaram), we had pitchers of beer and ate noodles!
Sunday we got up late and tried to find a restaurant called New Laxmi Villas (which is said to have food to dream about) but it was closed so we ended up eating in Leopolds again. Then we took a walking tour around Mumbai and saw the gateway of India which the English arrived and left through, some museums (which we didn't go in) and the university of Mumbai and the Oval Maiden which is this huge green and had hundreds of Indian men playing multiple games of cricket it was a sight of awe. I had a funny belly again so we went back to the hotel for a lie down. Later we went for food in Moshes and then cakes from Theobroma mmmm mmmm mmmm!!!
Monday we finally made it to new Laxmi villas where I ate bhelpuri (which kinda looked like fried maggots) and Sean ate a Dosa! Next we went to the post office (coz I brought too much stuff n needed to send it home to mum) it was really cool coz the man wrapped my stuff in newspaper first then in cotton and sewed the edges together. we went back to the hotel room to find ants eating my snack so we went out to new laxmi villas for cheap dinner again (I had a veggie burger and Sean had a veg passanda, fruity!) we started our Malaria tablets and we both had dodgy bellies again and I had the worst nites sleep ever!!
Tuesday we went to the gateway of India and got a boat to Elephanta island we walked up loads of steps and a monkey attacked Sean for his Limca bottle and ran up a tree to drink it! hilarious! the caves had faces of Hindu Gods carved in them but it wasn't as good as we thought and we had to pay extra charges at various points up the hill. had loads of people trying taking our photo and some asked us which is OK (especially if they want to get in the photo with us) but otherwise if i see them slily taking one I look away. I got burnt today (I'm not going to blame it on the fact i didn't put sun protection on, but on the fact that the malaria tablets make you light sensitive!) We went to Leopolds for dinner (we had boring noodles and rice) which was hugely expensive then we went to Chowpatty beach for the sunset and had Kolfi which is just like ice-cream.
Wednesday we signed out of our hotel room and went to Malabar hill where all the posh Mumbai people live, rambled into some Hindu Mandirs and even a Jain Temple (which is a strain of Hinduism). then we went to Banganga Tank which is a big pool with a wooden pole in the middle which legend says Lord Ram created the tank by piercing the earth with his arrow. We are getting our flight to Surabaya Indonesia at 10pm tonight.

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