Jaipur

And so to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan and another very different side of Indian life. Jaipur is known for the Pink City, which is the walled Old town which was painted pink in honour of a visiting British monarch. However, it's not that pink anymore - which is understandable.

Anyways, we got to the train station not knowing where we would be staying so we popped into the government travel agency to ask about what hotels were available. There only seemed to be one they recommended, which was a bit suspicious, but having nowhere else booked we took a chance. Good job we did - it was undoubtably the best hotel we've stayed at in India - all for about 13GBP a night. Clean sheets, a proper mattress, flat screen tv(!), a decent shower and a great rooftop restaurant. Just what the doctor ordered.

So we headed out for the day to check out the old town and the City Palace after grabbing some lunch. On our way we got a bit sidetracked as we were stopped in the street by an American guy wanting to tell us about this sect of Hinduism he had got involved and how "orthodox" Christianity agreed with it. We were probably chatting with him for at least an hour, debating various things and tried to show him how Christianity was fundamentally different from other religions. He was very sincere but at times it was frustrating - he tried to argue that India was the most civilised nation he had come across, due to "orthodox" Hinduism, and that a little girl who came up to us to beg for money was happy because she was smiling! This was perhaps an indication of his mindset.

After this interlude we found somewhere for lunch (at about 3pm) on recommendation of our rickshaw driver who also took us to a couple of shops as it was too late to go to the palace. Because of his helpfulness we agreed to let him take us to a couple of sights the next day.

So the next day Amar, our driver, picked us up to take us to the Amber palace/fort. It is an amazing place and the rest of India could learn something from the Rajasthanis about how to preserve their heritage. Built on a hill about 10km from Jaipur it is a stunning piece of architecture. Highly recommended.

Next we headed back to Jaipur for lunch and then to the Hawa Mahal, a very arabic looking 5 storey building with views over the pink city. At this point we parted company with our rickshaw driver and gave him (a very reasonable) 300 rupees for his trouble. Unfortunately he now decided he wanted 600! We found this many times in India, that if there's money involved, you generally see the worst side of Indian people - though I guess it is the same the world over.

Anyways, after giving him an extra 100 we made our way to the Hawa Mahal and on to the City Palace. Not quite as good as the Amber fort but still an impressive sight.

And so our time in Jaipur was up and we were on the way back to Delhi to catch our flight to sunny Goa.

Only one week to go before we get back to sunny Cheshire!