Craig probably shouldn't be trusted to book train tickets. On this occasion he had us up at 3.30am to catch yet another train, this time the destination being Jaipur. On the plus side he did manage to find a really nice hostel for us to stay in which balanced things out.

On arrival in Jaipur there was no messing around, we went straight into the Pink City to see its sights. Because of the trains being fully booked we had spent more time that we had wanted in Varanasi, the knock-on effect being that we had barely more than one day to look around Jaipur. Our timetable was also under pressure from our driver conspiring against us by maintaining that all the sights in Jaipur were closed due to the Muslim festival that was still going on. The sheer gall of auto-rickshaw drivers throughout India telling bare-faced lies never ceased to amaze us.

The Pink City is nothing like either of us imagined. We were expecting, a tightly knit city encircled by a massive fort with high defensive walls, much like the forts we had encountered in Delhi and Agra. Instead Jaipur had an urban feel and streets like many of the other cities we had already visited, it just happened to be behind (pink) walls that delineated the city boundary rather than affording any military protection. During our whirlwind tour we visited the City Palace Museum, Hawa Maha (a facade for the ladies of the harem), Jantar Mantar (a fascinating astrological observatory), and the city tower.

We were really disappointed that we weren't able to see the famous forts of Rajastan and we will have to come back again someday to visit the famous forts at Jaisalamar, Jodpur and the outskirts of Jaipur.