Extended Family, This morning we had to get up early in order to avoid the line-up for the elephant rides up the mountain to the Amber Fort. We arrived at breakfast at 7:15am and needed to be in the tourist van (hereinafter referred to as the "Tourist" because of the large "Tourist" sign on the front window) by 8:00. The chef and wait staff at the hotel are all very nice and are willing to do anything to please the guests, but they will never ...

Dear Acquaintances,We arrived in Jaipur at 6pm on Thursday night. Our hotel is the Tree of Life and is located a bit outside the city, and then about 10 minutes up a dirt/sort of paved road up into a rural village in absolutely the middle of nowhere. We were greeted by about 10 staff, but quickly noticed that we didn't see any other guests. I asked, and it turns out that there are 3 other guests currently at the hotel. Between the 5 of us we have 3 ridiculous lar...

Hi Everyone I woke up early this morning and was in the gym early - by about 6:45. I thought I was pretty early, and fairly proud of myself until I walked in and was greeted by Lisa as she finished up her workout which began around 6. Then at breakfast, Antony showed up just having been to the gym, and thinking he was the early riser, asked where everyone else was this morning, only to find out that Lisa and I had already beaten him there. We got into the van a...

Today I woke up at about 6am (mostly because it would have been 11:30 inMelbourne). I was about to head to the gym, but got a call from Richard at6:15 saying "its clear out, we have to go see the Taj Mahal at sunrise!". SoI changed from gym shorts and got dressed and headed to the lobby. Theconcierge told us it was waaaay to foggy for a sunrise and that we couldn'tget in more than once w our tickets. As you can imagine, Antony and Lucywere not pleased t...

We are currently in our "tourist" van from Delhi to Agra. In Agra is the TajMahal. Its about 120kms but takes around 5.5 hours because there is so muchtraffic! And not just cars... Motor bikes, pedestrians, bikes, camels,elephants, buffalo. There are also these 3 wheeled mini taxis that each haveabout 12 ppl minimum in them. I thought they'd maybe fit 3 people! As thetour guide said...India is a democracy, everyone can use the roads as theylike! We hav...