J: We got the public train to Jaipur, a 6 hour journey through the country side. On the journey I simply said to Sam "just move your feet so the rat (it was only small) can pass you" her reaction wasn't so calm!

S: There was me engrossed in my book, well I was a right girl - in fairness I couldn't scream (think of the locals laughing at me - the white girl scared of a Rat!!) but I quickly removed my feet and proceeded to expel a few obscene words. And it wasn't small - it was huge, massive!!

J: The poor mother and daughter opposite had never heard English like it lol. When we get to Jaipur it was getting late but I still managed to find a lovely cheap hostel.

S: Ahh the hostel, bearing in mind we were tired and sweaty, I think I would of slept and showered anywhere. In the morning reality set in and I was not staying there for two more nights, so we went hunting for a hostel before the days excursions. (In fairness I think I was still scarred by the whole rat incident and didn't want to wake up with one crawling over me!!) We grabbed a rickshaw for a few hours and we went to the palace of kings. Very beautiful and had lots of interesting artefacts - including the biggest silver container in the Guinness world records.

J: I still think the first hostel was fine..... And £2 a night cheaper!
We also went to Jantar Mantar (an observatory) which has many different instruments using the sun and shadows including the world's biggest sun dial, again in the Guinness book of records. It's so big you can count time down to 2 seconds which is impressive.
We both felt a lot better that day, started trusting farts again, and even braved a chicken meal after a couple beers, oh the confidence of us now.... how long will it last?

S: We visited the Amber Fort, well we were in for a treat. The book had said get a guide and I swear the man was 60+ but his knowledge was immaculate. He knew everything, we ended up with garlands of flowers round our neck and taking fantastic pictures with the little tricks he knew about the fort. Although he did tell off the locals if they got in the way lol.
So we are walking around the fort and the guide says "have you been to the city palace?? If you have, you've got free tickets to the Jaigarh fort." Well Mr K lit up, I knew what he was thinking - free, we'll have some of that. But first we had to climb 2km up and this time in 42 degrees. I think this is going to be a long year lol.

J: The Amber fort was epic and our guide was explaining how the king had 12 wives with secret passage ways to "visit" them without upsetting the rest, clever guy! We did walk up to the very top for our FREE entry, and at the top of the was the biggest cannon in India..... It was very large but when they said 50 tonnes and fires 26 miles I was expecting it to be bigger.
Interestingly it was only ever fired once as a test, what a shame.