If you've ever been to India, or indeed any traveller hotspot in these parts, you'll know that invariably they are full of auto-rickshaws (tuc tucs) and that you get constantly hassled by the people driving them. No matter how short your desired trip on foot might be, they will harass you trying to get a few rupees from your pocket to go anywhere. Well, the one time we actually wanted to take one of these things to get back to our hotel on a swealtering day, Kate strode out into the road to beckon a rickshaw; soon enough a driver slowed a little, took one look at her, shook his head and drove off. Now I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of Indian culture, however I'm pretty sure that this is about the worst insult that one can receive. Oh how I laughed.

Our trip from Delhi to Jaipur was made in air conditioned seats on Indian railway. The only word I can to sum this up is 'impressive'! For a little over 6 pounds, we travelled the 4 hour journey in a spacious and comfortable environment - we even got a free bottle of water. Oh that's not enough? OK, we also got a free paper, a free pot of tea and a free breakfast! National rail take note! Upon arriving in the Pink City (Jaipur) - named that way for its pink architecture in the old town - we headed to our hotel, Pearl Palace, which also had a wonderful roof-top restaurant that we would come to frequent numerous times over the followed days. Our accomodation was set in a quiet and peaceful part of town, which was refreshing after the hustle and bustle of Delhi, and we began to relax.

In the next few days we set about conquering all of the sites and sounds in Jaipur. We had a wander around the old town, which was full of small shops selling everything you can imagine from teas to fabrics to car engines. On our first full day in Jaipur we went to the City Palace, which was absolutely beautiful and gets fulls marks for it's concise yet interesting audio tour. We also went to the Jantar Mantar, which was a garden full of large stone instruments used for observing 'the heavens' (the sun and that), and also to the Hawa Mahal - a decrative fascade set above the main street of Jaipur that was used to allow women to watch processions without being seen (although it didn't seem to do its job very well since we got stared at all the way around). The old city is atmospheric and teeming with wildlife: we saw elephants, camels. monkeys, endless wandering cows and I even managed to tread on a dead rat (maybe this is karma after laughing at Kate's adventure with the rickshaw driver) - talk about getting back to nature!

After a bit of relaxing and plenty of nice food to fill our time, we also had a days sightseeing by rickshaw a little out of town. We passed by the Water Palace and walked around an impressive Royal Gaitor (off the tourist trail according to our driver, if you ever believe such things) on our way up to the village of Amber. At the top we avoided the expensive elephant ride and took the free number 11 bus (our legs: the driver had a good time teasing us about this as we wondered where the bus stop was) up to the top of the hill to see Amber Palace, which was massively over-hyped in our guide book and was actually rather boring. The jewel in the crown of our day was really the walk between the palace and Jaighar Fort (also over-rated), which although a little sweaty, allowed us to take in the wonderful views of the surrounding hills and the village of Amber. It was incredibly peaceful, something you really come to appreciate in Inidan towns. On the way back down we went to the elephant house (and got some pictures) and also into a textile factory where they were making the local block printed fabrics - a great day!

A bit more sightseeing, a few more museums (the Albert Hall was particularly good with some crazy statues of numerous yoga poses), a couple of run ins with locals that will have to wait for another day, and the best Tandoori Chicken we've ever eaten and it was time for us to move on. Next stop, Agra and its iconic Taj Mahal!

Until next time,

A & K