Well, where do we start..... Landed in Delhi early hours of the morn. we had already booked accomodation so all we needed to do was get a cab there - simple you may be thinking, well not in Delhi, there nothing is simple. After fighting off the touts we booked a prepaid cab (which are supposed to be kosher) to our hotel, got in our cab all seemed fine, 2 guys driving + chatting away to us then they couldn't find our road(how convenient) so they took us to an agent??? who fake called our hotel + they didnt have a room for us... to cut a long story short we got scammed it wasnt too bad though as in the morn. we refused to pay more than our original hotel cost it got a bit hairy but we just gave the money and walked away,not looking back. So that was our welcome into India!! After another mission of trying to find the real Tourist Info centre we eventually gave up and booked a driver + car to take us on our 2 week tour of Rajasthan - trail of kings. The price was within budget and it was just so much more appealing then figuring out how to get trains etc.. ourselves. So off we went with Sanju our driver who thankfully was a really great guy. First stop was Mandawa we didnt see much there but stayed in a really nice Havelli and watched a very entertaining puppet show. Next on to Bikaner where we went to Red Fort and a holy temple which we thought was Red temple, only after we got in realised he said Rat temple - the place was swarming in them, they they worship the rats as they are holy - apparantly as you can imagine we didnt stay there for long!!! Now to Khuri a desert town where we did a camel safari and slept under the stars- how romantic, not for me(Daniella) as I had the pleasure of a dung beatle flying into my dinner then spent the rest of the night freaking out about the bugs - the camels were cool though. Then Jaisalmer the golden city went to a fort and a dodgy crafts museum. Next stop to Johpur - blue city, we really liked it there we went to yep you've guessed it another fort, this one was really cool though you got an audio tour which made us appreciate it more. In the evening we went to the old city - crazy market then we went to one of Sanju's friends spice shop (we didn't really want to but you have to do these things dont you). It turned out that his friend was a really nice guy - not the usual pushy salesman we had previously encountered we bought some chocolate tea, garlic masala and saffron soap. Now into the hills of Ranakpur where we were supposed to be chilling for a few days, the first night I freaked out again as we had a bug infested room we went on a rampage and must've killed a hundred, we also murdered our little lizard friend who somehow wedged himself in the door and we closed it without realising so that was a bit traumatic. In the morning our room looked like an insect morgue so we moved rooms to a bug free zone. We went on a trek which we didnt realize was going to be 7 hours up a mountain through streams, up rocks, through bushes - you get the picture it was pretty hard but we had a great view from the top. (And you guys were jealous of our travels?!??) Off we go again to Udaipur - romantic city it seemed really nice but we didn't have long there, we enjoyed a nice meal overlooking Lake Pichola.-This is where octop**** was filmed so Mike tells me. Next to Pushkar a holy desert town with lots of stoned monkeys and "priests" we got conned a little again by a priest who took us to the holy lake and said many prayers for our families - at a cost of couse!! - we are beginning to realise that everybody in India wants ur money!! We did enjoy Pushkar however, it was nice and chilled. Last stop on Rajasthan Jaipur went to city palace which was a bit pants, a few more forts saw some elephants bathing in a river which was nice. Last stop was Agra for the Taj Mahal we got up at 5 to see it at sunrise but our driver overslept so we missed the sunrise, not to worry though. The Taj was beautiful, a nice end to our trip. We are now off down south in search of some sanity, beaches, fellow backpackers and something other than veg curries!!!!!!! Lots of love Dan + Mike