Having visited "The Jaipur" in MK so many times, we thought it would be rude not to come and check out the real thing whilst here and it was certainly well worth the flying visit.

The drive here was the longest of our journey's through Rajasthan so far, a marathon 400km and 8.5 hours. Although we were very glad for the invention of ipods that day, we did also see a few bizarre sights to pass the time:
1) Sheep being herded across a busy three-lane motorway without so much as a glance from the shepherd in the direction of the traffic.
2) Newly built truck shells being driven to have the rest of the vehicle built around them (think chassis, engine, steering wheel and seat!).
3) Cows being used to pull wheels to draw water from wells and generate electricity, in remote villages (cows don't seem to be too comfortable going backwards!).
4) A proper (though small) tornado moving down the roadside, picking up small stones as it passed.
The drive was mostly single track roads and pretty hair raising at times. Drivers here really have no qualms about over-taking into the path of oncoming traffic. It seems like if someone is driving at you on the wrong side of the road it is your responsibility (depending on who's horn is the loudest) to just deal with it! We saw a few too many wrecks for comfort that day!

We have now realised that our driver has two conversations that he can manage in English. Firstly, the seasonal changes in climate (repeated at least twice daily) and secondly, that everthing is "Velly, velly good" or "Velly, velly famous . . . all India . . . Velly, velly famous" (though we have managed to expand his vocabulary to include "velly, velly eggcellent"!).

Our first night in Jaipur was at the foot of the Amber fort ("Velly, velly famous"!), ready for a morning visit the next day, follwed by a visit to the ("Velly, velly good"!) Jaigarh fort above it and the ("Velly, velly eggcellent"!) Tiger Fort over the main city. Formerly being made up of a series of royal states, Rajasthan sure has a lot of Forts and Palaces! Although those visited in Jaipur are still pretty stunning, and with "eggcellent" views down over the city and surrounding hills, it was sad to see them not being anywhere near as well looked after as those in Jodhpur or Udaipur. Really decorative rooms have graffiti all over them and are home to loads of pigeons.

We also visited the burial tombs of the Jaipur Maharaja's accompanied by a very "special" guide! Most interesting was the Maharaja who had 9 wives, 900 concubines, but sadly, no children. Apparently, this was due to the fact that everytime he slept with someone they died shortly after. Gemma was rather naively thinking that this was because he'd been described as a 7ft tall, 4ft wide giant who ate 101 chapatti's for breakfast and so the poor ladies in question got a bit squashed . . . apparently not, he rather gleefully told us that it was because he had an 18 inch penis that the women couldn't handle!!

As well as more palace and fort hopping we have driven and walked around town, in and out of it's city walls and bazaars, but have not really even begun to scratch the surface of Jaipur. The (more terracotta than) "Pink City" seems to be that largest city we hace been to in the whole trip, though we have certainly been to bigger, but with very few multi-storey buildings this place just seems to go on forever. We have however decided to move on after our couple of days here. We can now add forts and palaces to temples in the list of things that we are now getting too blase about. Maybe we have been away too long and seen too many great things already!

On our last night here we came across a huge Indian wedding procession - when it passed our restaurant, everyone got up and went out into the street to watch. This left Graham particularly confused as when he came out of the gents he found a completely empty restaurant and wondered where everyone had gone! The wedding was apparently for a "velly, velly rich" family complete with elephant, camel, chandeliers, 3 horses, dancers and 2 generators! It looked "velly, velly good" although, perhaps not for us as the groom was away from all the fun, perched on his horse at the back looking a little bored!

Next stop something completely different - Tiger-spotting in Ranthambore National Park!