Pushkar and Jaipur

We took the train from Udaipur to Pushkar, well actually Ajmer. Our first impressions of Ajmer were thank god we aren't staying here it looked crazy. The 5 hour train was in CC, chair only and the hours flew! 5 hours is nothing to us now.

Our first day in Pushkar, so we headed out to explore. Our friend and saviour Bobby was in town with his small tour group so we met him in a nearby cafe. His tour group consisted of 3 men in their 50s from Israel. Ashi: a chief doctor, David: civil engineer (secretly we named him Star of David) and Eli who's profession we don't remember. They were living like Maharajahs that we do remember! After a coffee Bobby invited us to dine with them this evening, we accepted! Here in India it's not theist idea for 2 girls to go walking the streets at night alone so the majority of the time we are confined to our hostels for the evenings. So we jumped at the invitation. We spent the rest of the day we spent the day wandering and checking out what Pushka had to offer in its markets, it's all starting to look the same but didn't stop us from buying more junk to fit in our bag. We headed back to our hotel which was a bit far out but lovely all the same. The owner was a nice man and are picking his brain about the area we started chatting about our recent palm reading and the rocks we had been suggested to wear. The owner looked at Morganes hand and dropped a piece of Coral into her hand.....she gets all the luck!! After the event and my face scrunched up in total jealousy, we left to meet Bobby and his crew. The Israeli gents had also grown fond of the rocks available in India and showed us their collection of expensive gems, along with a beautiful blue sapphire that David had had sent from Jaipur by private driver.....like we said....maharajahs!! We ended the evening on the rooftop terrace of the guys hotel for a beer.....BEER! Those who know me will be well aware if my fondness for alcohol, it's been a very dry month here in India so when offered the Indian beer 'Kingfisher' I was sprinting to the bar, only 1 mind...bloody expensive! The gents then got out a litre bottle of decent whiskey and a box of cigars. It was a real boys holiday which we were happy to gatecrash. After a few hours, a few whiskeys, a couple of puffs on a Cuban cigar it was home time. As Pushka is pretty small and nightlife is minimal, tuk tuks are hard to come by, so Bobby organised the hotel owner to drop us back (don't worry folks, safe as houses).

On arrival back to our hotel we found that the gates were locked...excellent. After attempts at climbing the 5ft wall (please see fb pics for evidence) I clambered up. After offering to assist Morgane in her climb by pulling her up, let's just say the response was too expletive to put in this blog!! After making it to the other side of the wall we were stumped on what to do without disturbing anyone. It had to be done, I slowly and silently walked up to the reception area where the security man was asleep on his makeshift bed. I first tried to wake him by the polite 'excuse me'....fail. I then tried to nudge his knee...fail. I had to resort to kicking the leg of his bed hard to wake the beast of a man who was, lets just say, not happy. He stomped to the gate where little miss innocent Morgane was standing, he opened a small gate that was part of the big gate to let her through....a job we could have done ourselves if we had bothered to look instead of just assuming the big pad lock meant no entry...come on you'd do the same right?

With our breakfast being slammed on the table by our waiter/security guard, we knew we were in trouble. The owner of the hotel came to question our late night asking why we were out until 3, in fact it was only midnight when we got ack to the hotel. It is clear how disapproving they were that as women we were out past watershed. We decided it was probably best to steer clear of the hotel for a few hours, it is their culture and we need to respect that. Apparently feminism is on the rise in the south, hurray. We headed towards the lake where we had heard of fake priests trying to scam money from you to save our families. We decided to take the risk and decided to go to the lake. As it was a place as worship we needed to take off our shoes, it was like crazy paving while trying to avoid the cow pats, pigeon poo and hot rocks when walking around. Along the waterside were some women praying and making patterns on the steps with coloured powder. We went down and asked them to show us what we were doing, they then invited us to pray with them. It is interesting to see the way these ladies were praying, using rice to worship the sun and putting candles into the lake, it was a tranquil experience and a real one, it was nice to experience it with a real family and not the con artist priests we had managed to dodge thus far. This evening we met up with Jayne who we had first met in Delhi, for dinner and to arrange meeting up again in the south for our backwater tour. Tomorrow we get a train to Jaipur, we haven't heard many good reviews of Jaipur so far so we approaching with caution!

Jaipur

In preparation for our journey, we picked up some samosas from a street vender. A favourite of Morganes since arriving in India. This train was pretty different to the others. This was a day train and was like boarding any English train at Birmingham New Street, with cushy seats and the carriage being full of white people, are we still in India? As the train began its 2 hour journey it was clear that the samosas weren't necessary as it seems we were booked into first class complete with Indian meals on wheels for all passengers in the carriage, bonus. We arrived in Jaipur giggling about the white tourists taking pictures of themselves on a train, ironic really with all the pictures we take when on a train! We arrived in Jaipur and stepped back into the reality of Nor India. We fought through the tuk tuk drivers and made our way to the pre paid taxi service making sure we held tightly to our ticket. When in the tuk tuk, the drivers tried to convince us to go on a tour with them for 500 ruppees, we declined. Something we have learned in India is that you haggle for everything, we could definitely find something cheaper (we are paupers now). Our hotel Anuraag Villas turned out to be a quite haven away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Jaipur is Rajasthans capital and very busy, but even though we had heard negative reviews, we had a good feeling about the place.

Once again a walk around is in order, but this time I took control of the map....you should have seen Morganes face. We decided to do the walking tour as recommended by the Lonely Planet (the bible) taking us around the pink city. As expected with my map reading, we took a few wrong turns along the way but it all turned out ok, I got us to the end and that's the main thing, even if we were drenched in sweat due to the heat. A walk by the city palace and a number of other attractions was on the agenda in preparation for our 300 rupee tour the following day. We headed out of the not so pink city towards Central Park. As we are back in a large city, it is clear to notice the absence of women from the streets.

Up for 10am this morning to meet up with out tuk tuk driver for our tour of the sights of Jaipur. 10am came and went and another tuk tuk driver informed us that he was already out with another guest. The hotel called him and he informed us he was too far away to come back for our tour. Looks like we are on to plan B then. Our friend Jayne had told us about a tour from the train station she had done a few days earlier so we headed that way to check it out. We stepped into the tourist office to enquire about the tour and were met by a crazy tour guide who filled us with stories of 5 full moon parties, his escapades around Thailand and how he had guided Opera Winfrey around Jaipur a few years previous, he had e pictures to prove it which he kindly spend 30 minutes showing us. Our tour was a half day tour for 250 rupees, we were picked up by our well dressed middle aged tour guide and were joined by the mute Czech, a Russian girl and 3 other Indian families. The half day tour turned into a 6 hour tour taking us to Jantra Mantra, Prince Albert Museam, Amber Fort and a beautiful temple on top of a hill worshipping the Goddess named after me, Karli. We had a great day and were adopted by the Indian families who were requesting pictures with us at all opportunities. The amber fort was the nicest fort we have visited so far with stunning views over the city. Me being me thought that the Indian guys following us around taking sneaky pictures were doing so because of my uncanny likeness to Angelina Jolie...haha, Morgane soon put that right.

Another night train tonight to a place we have been excited to reach since the beginning of our trip, Varanasi. One of the holiest places on the planet. Just the 17 hour train journey to get through first.