Day 25 - Jaipur

We are now in the capital of Rajistan, Jaipur. It is a big city, bit like Delhi, and quite hot. We arrived after catching yet another bus at about midday. We are staying in Diggi Palace - a hotel slightly removed from the chaos of Jaipur in a small, green boulevard. The staff all wonder around in blue shirts and berets - the whole place is strangely clean and unfriendly after cheerful, grotty Pushkar.

The whole city is called the pink city, because some time a long while ago someone important was visiting the city and the Maharajah ordered all the houses to be painted pink, the colour of welcome (at his expense of course). The pink is really a odd dirty salmon colour that doesn't hold up well to close inspection, but it looks nice from high up.

After a quick tour of the city (aargh - worst touts ever!) we levered our way onto a packed local bus for the 5R ride to the Amber Palace, where the Moghuls lived. Again, more fighting our way through touts trying to sell us paintings/models/postcards and wouldn't take no as an answer. We paid for a guide, and he showed us round the palace, pointed out the artwork and explained the ingenious air conditioning system in broken English. The fort was amazingly decorated, and the views beautiful. But we were in a hurry, so it was back down the steps, fight through the touts/beggers/crazy stoned indian ladies (yeah, the latter was a scary first experience).



In the evening we ate at an air conditioned restaurant with the most expensive, but worst food and surliest waiters to date. Oh dear! Still, it was Nicole's birthday so we had chocolate cake. Tomorrow we are going to see a bollywood movie - much fun!