Namstae from Jaipur (the pink city)

Well our 6 hour bus journey was really good, it passed fast and was interesting to drive through all the towns watching people in their daily lives.

We arrived at our hotel checked in and had a couple of hours to just chill out which was nice, we met at 5pm to do a walk around the city and to see parts of the pink city. Years ago the city was painted pink in honor of the president coming and there are still parts of the city this colour, it was really good to see.

Walking around the city was one of the best experiences so far, playing dodge the traffic and trying to cross roads was so scary, they just dont stop and they come from every angle. It was good to see all the local food markets and just city life here in general, we got a real feel of India.

After a good hour of walking through the city we arrived at the place Binu (our tour group leader) had picked out for us to eat, both our faces dropped as it was a man cooking on the street with a table and chairs through the back.....we were very weary. We got to watch the guy cooking the food and in the end it turned out to be the best Indian meal we have had yet, also the cheapest, for a starter, two main courses and two drinks was roughly 1.70 each, crazy cheap. But again it was veg dishes, we have both now went 5 days without touching any sort of meat, but I think Jonny is having a hard time of it as all he talks about in bed is T-Bone Steaks haha.

Our second day in Jaipur (Thursday) started at 6am with a brisk walk up to the top of Jaipur's version of Bennachie. Shay was struggling to say the least. We arrived at 7.15am just in time for the sunrise, which was absolutely amazing to see over the entire city of Jaipur (photos to come, although they wont do it any justice) it was well worth the struggle to get to the top.

We then went to visit a place called Monkey Temple with 7 other people from our group, as soon as we stepped out of the taxi there were dogs chasing pigs, goats chasing people and monkeys on the buildings just watching everything, it was crazy but funny. We had to walk up a sort of small mountain to get to the temple and along the way there were loads of things to amuse us, the monkeys mainly.....they were so cute, but Shay was slightly scared when they came close to her. We finally arrived at the temple after about 100 monkey pictures and met an Indian lady inside who gave all the girls Henna on their hands and bracelets, we got lots of photos. As we made our way back down, quite satisfied with the "monkey temple" we were told that we had just been to the Sun Temple and Monkey Temple was the other direction, when we looked down it was another major hike and decided that we had seen enough monkeys for one day.

Our way down was most eventful when a herd of monkeys attacked our group, jumping on our legs and being really scary, only Shay didnt stick around to see this she was off like a shot so missed most of it. Nobody got hurt but was pretty scary. A monkey bit one girl in the back and it went through her jumper and two t-shirts and just scratched the surface of her skin but no more, thankfully. We are not too keen on monkeys anymore.

We spent the rest of the day chilling out on the rooftop of our hotel, enjoying the sun, chatting to everyone in our group. We are all meeting again tonight to watch a Bollywood film and go out for a nice meal as its one of the girls birthday in our group. Think we have an early start again tomorrow and a 4 hour bus journey to Pushkar, there are no eggs, meat or alcohol allowed in Pushkar as it is so holy. It shouldnt make a difference to Shay as there is only beer here so she hasnt had an alcoholic drink yet, which she is most upset about haha.

Will try and upload some pictures next time we get a WiFi so untill then....

J + B