Up at 5am for another early train to Jaipur…turns out we could have had another hour in bed! Typically the train was delayed, but it wasn't too much of a bother, as we got chatting to a couple from Brazil (Tiago and Maria) and whiled away the time talking about travels, life and everything else. There wasn't AC chair class for our 5 and half hour journey, so we had booked into 2 tier AC sleeper class and as it was the sleeper train from Varanasi to Jodhpur the beds were all still down. Within minutes of getting on, James had settled himself on the top bunk wrapped himself up and fell asleep! I sat on the lower bunk and amused myself reading, looking out of the window, drinking chai and waiting for the samosas to come round! I bought some breakfast and later some samosas, waking James up to feed him and then sent him back to sleep! At one point, a lovely lady stopped to ask me where I was from and with motherly concern etched into her face asked me if I was travelling alone. I do now wonder what she would have done if I'd said yes, but thanked her kindly and said that I wasn't…he was just asleep upstairs!

We had expected to pick up more of a delay as we journeyed down to Jaipur, but actually it wasn't too bad and possibly we even made time up. The issue being that they didn't announce any of the stations, so I had to keep an eye out! Based on the length of the initially delay and the time we were meant to get in, I woke James up about 20 minutes before and we got ready for our stop. I had read that there was only one station in Jaipur so was ready to get up and go as soon as I saw Jaipur mentioned on a sign post, but was slightly confused by the lack of people getting up and ready. The old man getting off the train must have read my confused look and confirmed that it was one more stop to go until the main Jaipur station.

Same old story, we got out and found a tuk tuk and headed for our hostel…although he didn't seem to know where it was. It was a bit out of town so he ended up having to call to get directions.

As soon as we got there, we realised that we'd made a great decision with the hostel and were looking forwrd to the next 4 nights! The Manager is 21 years old, called Kunal and enjoys socialising and smoking (some herb). We arrived at the hostel about 2pm. Around 2.15pm we were sat on the terrace outside our room. We spent a long time just chatting with Kunal and drinking masala chai! Around 4pm, we had our first beer (they only did 8% Tuborg Strong!). Around about 6pm we had some potato parathas (made by the in house chef) and about 9pm after 3 strong beers and an early start, I (Podge) stumbled to bed leaving James to continue chatting with Kunal and some other guests.

Wow, certainly haven't had a hangover like that in a while. I felt rough. But as we'd expressed an interest in samosas and jalebi the night before - that was what awaited us for breakfast! Not quite the hangover cure I was after, but nice nonetheless. I had to go back and have a nap and we resigned ourselves to having a 'day-off'. We haven't really had many of these to be honest and it was quite nice to just chill and not have to worry about going anywhere or seeing anything. A little later, Jason and Christina (California) arrived and were keen to go out and see the sunset over the Monkey Temple. Having rested sufficiently, we decided to join them and set about getting a cab…they introduced us to Uber (much cheaper than even some rickshaws!)…however, the temple was 'out of Uber range', not to mention it closed at 5pm. So we were dropped off near the city palace near lots of monkeys (the locals feed the monkeys and the cows which is quite nice, so when we were there, a guy was chucking handfuls of bananas at the monkeys - they were fun to watch!) and set about trying to find a higher point to watch the sunset…no such luck. Everything in Jaipur seems to shut at 5pm!! Admitting defeat, we stopped for some Pani Puri (Yay!) and wandered around the city. First impressions are that it seems quite relaxed, nobody really bothers you too much in the market and it felt quite calm. Determined to find something open, we stopped into the Junta Munta (observatory) for the sound and light show. It was pretty good actually! It went through the history of the observatory and how/why it was built. Coupled with the enormous bats flying around, it was pretty cool.

Too calm in fact, we struggled to actually pick up a tuk tuk back to the hostel! We started wandering in the general direction of where we were staying and stopped in for a beer in a really shady looking bar (where Christina and I were the only women), further up the road we picked up some amazing ice cream and then finally we managed to get a ride back home. Realising we hadn't eaten yet (it was about 10.30pm - also our latest night so far!) we ordered takeaway, Indian food of course! Really nice (but quite spicy) tandoori chicken. We've not been eating much meat since we've been away, mainly just because it's not so widely available and where it is, it's more expensive. Also, as we've been travelling around so much, we haven't wanted to get sick, so best to err on the side of caution. In fact our diet is basically the complete opposite to back home, where we'd have a completely veggie meal once a week; now we are having a meat meal just about once a week….need to up our fruit intake though!

There were another couple of guys in the hostel; Eric from Detroit who was travelling back home after working in S.Korea for 6 years teaching, and Sergio from Chile who had sold his real estate business and was just travelling around. Despite the late hour, we were all keen to get up and go to a nearby fort to watch the sunrise…………

Well, no-one made it up for sunrise! Although as Jason quite rightly pointed out - there's a sunrise every day, so no matter! All feeling a bit lazy (this hostel just seems to relax people!) we relaxed for the morning and started to formulate a 'plan'. Seemed that we were all heading in the general direction of the Amber Fort, so made sense for us to all travel together. Luckily we managed to pick up a 6 seater Uber cab and went on our way. The fort was amazing, huge! And it was all open, so you could just wander around and get lost in the many, many corridors and stair ways. We all got split up after a while and then somehow managed to find each other - a good thing as James and I had run out of money completely, owing to the fact that they'd just hiked up their prices for tourist…but quite a lot. Again here, there were quite a few people stopping to ask for their pictures with us, which did begin to wear thin, but as we were in a group, it was nice to share the load! There were some nice little gardens on the way out of the fort that we tried to go and explore - there was a man with a set of scales weighing people on their way out (you can make money doing literally anything in India!) who said that it was no entry…but not being a 'guard' and with the absence of any signs, we just kept on walking. True enough as we got in touching distance of the gardens, we were turned back…but at least we'd had 10 minutes of respite from the constant sellers. Jason seemed to bear the brunt of it while we were there and in parts, was relentless.

Trying to get a ride back into the city was interesting. They know that you are basically stuck on top of this hill about 10 km from town so the prices they were coming out with were ridiculous! We ended up paying way over the odds, but split between 5, it worked out. Eric had to sit in the 'boot' although, being the photographer, he was quite happy with this and spent most of the journey snapping pictures out the back. There was one old guy riding a motorbike, looked like a proper Dude (see pictures!), he was more than happy to pose, even putting on his aviators halfway through! Jason and Christina were getting a bus to Pushkar that evening and as time was getting on we decided to just get back to the hostel, most of us were flagging a bit from the heat and hassle…and dying for a cup of chai! Getting a tuk tuk back from town to the hostel was a struggle, but it gave me a chance to pick up some fruit (including a whole pineapple!) and James got a hat (although it was difficult to get one to fit his massive head!). All worked out fine though and soon enough, we were relaxing in our usual spot with a nice cup of chai. The 'chef' in the hostel was great and cooked up some dinner so we all chilled for the rest of the evening. I spent a while talking to Eric about pictures and editing, so managed to download a lite version of a photo editing programme to tweak certain pictures - I'm not sure it's something I can get into full time though, not sure I have the patience.

We were planning on moving onto Jodhpur the day after next so James went out with Kunal to try and book some train tickets…a few hours later, he came back without any tickets, but by all accounts had had a rather interesting time - involved, going out in a car and returning on the back of a bike, meeting Kunal's family and having some dinner with them…typical Indian adventure! We'd tackle the train tickets the next day, maybe. Somehow, it ended up being 2am…time for bed!

Determined to get out and do something productive, we sat around drinking chai, chatting and working out what we all wanted to do. At about 4pm, we were still sitting there drinking chai (and finishing off the ginger nut biscuits!) and trying to formulate a plan. We achieved nothing…but it was worth it. We were about to book our train tickets, but a girl arrived from the Jodhpur CrashPad (where we were going to stay) and said that the manager was driving someone up to Jaipur - we naturally thought that he'd then have to drive back down there so could catch a lift, so we put off buying any tickets until he arrived, which wasn't till much later that day. In the meantime, Eric kindly took us out for dinner - we ended up in a very air conditioned Italian restaurant - nice food, but such a contrast for where we were. James and I had offered to cover the drinks…however when the manager started to explain the tax put on the beer, we all quickly decided it was best to stick to mineral water! All we seem to have eaten over the past few days is bread, chapatis and potatoes…so a meal of pasta was just what we needed to complete the mix of heavy carbohydrates…feeling full but satisfied, Kunal drove us back to the hostel, through bad traffic caused by the train line…and over the train line in the nick of time … ok the train was quite far away, but we could see the lights…so it was close enough!

It was clear that we were not travelling to Jodhpur the next day.

Right, an extra day in Jaipur - time to go and do the things we didn't before. James, Eric, Marius (from Oslo) and I jumped in a tuk tuk and headed for the Monkey Temple - as the name suggests, there were a lot of Monkeys! There was a guy selling packets of nuts to feed them as well, Marius loves monkeys so he was in his element. The walk up was hot and we were a bit confused when we reached the top as it didn't look like what we'd come to see, there was a nice little temple where we got the obligatory red dot on the head and coloured string, but we were expecting some more buildings and water….appears we'd come in from the other direction. Walking down the other side of the hill, towards the big temple complex was pretty cool, with far reaching views of the country on one side and behind us the city. It was nice, got some good pictures of the monkeys and some of the buildings. On the way back, we stopped for a quick cup of chai to propel us up the hill…it was a big steep walk up in the heat! Determined to get either some Pani Puri or Dosas for lunch, we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us somewhere; he insisted though that we would get sick if we ate any of the street food and took us instead to a little restaurant serving cheap but pretty good food. After a bit of a rest and refuel, we wanted to go for a walk around the Pink City so got dropped off near the palace and started walking. All the prices for 'attractions' had been hiked up and none of us were really sure exactly what we wanted to do, so after a while decided that we should cut our losses and head back to chill out. The heat really sucks it out of you here. After some more chai, James and I went to the train station to book our tickets on to Jodhpur the next afternoon - the equivalent of about £4 for both of us to ride in the Sleeper class (non a/c but comfortable nonetheless - not quite the scrum of the second class seating!).

Anyway, another win for us. Tomorrow we'd be on our way…as difficult as it was for us to tear ourselves away from our calm little oasis of a hostel. We can't stay forever though…onwards and upwards!