Jaipur or Bust

We had another overnight train journey last night from Jaisalmer to Jaipur, which luckily was pretty uneventful, although I feel bad for poor Phil who has a lot more trouble sleeping on trains than I have had so far (touch wood). Luckily I seem to be able to pop in my earplugs, put on my eye mask and conk out, although I woke at 4.45am this morning for our 5am arrival with a really painful crick in my neck which was annoying. Stupidly, we'd decided not to book our accommodation here ahead in favour of winging it when we arrived here - turned out that that was a bad idea. The first place we eventually made our way to at 5.30am via rickshaw was booked out, and the second, third, fourth and fifth were all booked out too. We eventually found ourselves at a basic but cheap guesthouse that had a room, thank goodness, and collapsed on the bed to get another couple of hours' sleep before we tackled the town. The room is okay - fairly clean (bar the shit stain in the loo), and no sheets or towels, but for $6 each per night for a private room with a bathroom we can't really complain.

After breakfast we headed out into the city to orient ourselves and see what landmarks and sights we could on foot. We failed dismally at the Lonely Planet suggested self-guided walking tour (I know my sense of direction is non-existent, but seriously, there are not road signs whatsoever) and ended up in a dodgy area of the old town where a pack of little kids asked us for rupees then when we failed to hand over the money, proceeded to throw rocks and bits of rubbish at us for the nect 50m up the street. Needless to say our first impressions of Jaipur were not the best.

We eventually worked out where we were and spent today wandering around the bazaars and the City Palace, which was nice but nothing special. I'm getting a bit tired of old stonework, miniature paintings and Mughal and Rajput artefacts to be honest - it feels a bit like when you've seen a couple of Rajasthani forts and palaces, you've seen them all.

Jaipur is another big city really. We even had McDonalds for lunch! It wasn't just regular Maccas though, I had a McAloo Tikki burger and Phil sampled a McVeggie...not bad at all! We also encountered a guy riding an elephant, another couple of people riding camels and the usual million cows, goats and other assorted animals mixed in with the traffic as we walked along the main road this afternoon.

It's actually been quite draining today as the people here are about ten times as pushy and insistent as the inhabitants of any other place we've visited so far. Rickshaw drivers, shop owners and tour operators just will not take no for an answer, and at least four times today we've been accused of hating Indian people and of apparently thinking that we're better than them because we're rich and white when we've politely declined or ignored yet another tout. It's really frustrating. We've also decided that from now on we're Britons rather than Aussies if anyone asks us where we're from, because otherwise they want to know all about the racial attacks on Indian students in Australia and ask us why Aussies hate Indians. I'm not sure why we haven't encountered these questions before Jaipur - perhaps the attacks got more media coverage here? But honestly, about three or four people have randomly asked us that on the street today.

Anyway, had better go and find some dinner. Tomorrow we have another full day and night in Jaipur, and we're off to Delhi on Wednesday morning - a 6 hour train journey if there are no delays (fingers crossed). We'll probably visit the Amber Fort tomorrow, but we'll definitely by avoiding the Monkey Palace. The idea of being swamped by rabid monkeys gives us the heebie jeebies!

Love E x