Jaipur, Agra and Khajuraho

We arrived in Jaipur very late and so just headed straight for a place we'd read about in our book.  The rooms were lovely but priced a bit out of our budget but we were so tired after the bus we decided to just treat ourselves for the night and find somewhere cheaper in the morning.  After a relaxing sleep and a nice hot shower we went to check out.  They asked why we weren't staying, we were honest and told them that it was a bit out of our price range to which they responded by offering us their "wifi room".  This was a room which had one computer in it but also two beds made up on the floor.  Because we couldn't really be bothered moving our bags again we accepted their kind offer of the Wifi room for Rs150 a night, roughly £1.50.   It was actually a very comfortable wee room and other backpackers had left lovely messages all over the walls which were nice to read.  

We met our first scottish back packer since arriving in India! Him and his Aussie girlfriend were doing some travelling in india before emigrating to Australia.  His girlfriend remembered that we had all actually already met briefly on a bus from Udaipur to Jodhpur.  It's such a huge country but we've actually met a few people more than once since arriving.  After breakfast we walked from our accommodation down to the Pink City which was about 1.5km away.  We visited Jantar Mantar which has loads of huge astronomical devices which were built in the 1700's.  We hadn't seen any restaurants or cafes since arriving in the pink city so we grabbed some tasty street food for the pricey sum of around 40p for the two of us.  After our lunch we visited the Palace of the winds and Albert Hall which were both very beautiful.  Kay had caught a cold in Pushkar from one of the girls in our dorm room and wasn't feeling very well so we got a tuk tuk back to the accommodation in time for dinner.  

The restaurant service in India has been generally painfully slow but this place took the biscuit! Kay waited almost an hour and a half for some tomato soup which when it arrived tasted like cuppa soup! My dinner was tasty though, and arrived ages before Kay's did.

The next day we went on a wee tour to some places outside of Jaipur.  We were first taken to Amber Fort which was really impressive and very ornate.  We were then taken to Elephant Village so we could spend some time feeding the elephants.  We could have done a ride, it wasn't too expensive, but we are planning to do one in Thailand so just spent some time hugging the elephants and giving them food!  We watched a couple who were doing a ride try to get onto the elephant by climbing up the trunk.  The guy managed ok as the elephant moved its trunk to help him once he started but his girlfriend didn't get the same courtesy when the elephant decided not to help her.  she was just dangling from its ears while we all laughed.   We asked the driver to take us to a washing ghat which had loads of cool stairs down to it which looked like something out of The Labyrinth and then we went to see the water palace on the way back to the city which was pretty but nothing in comparison to Udaipur's Palace.   

The driver dropped us back on MI road which is the main road running through Jaipur and we headed in the direction of our accommodation.  We stopped at a famous Lassie shop which is a yogurty drink that they have here.  We have had flavoured ones in restaurants but they only had Sweet or Salted on offer here.  The lassie was served in clay pot/mugs and when we went to hand them back when we were finished they told us just to chuck them in a big metal bit at the front of the shop.  We couldn't decided if they would recycle them somehow or if they were one use only? I hope they are recycling them, it's very wasteful if not.

We went to a place called Pearl Palace for dinner which had been recommended to us by the Scottish/Aussie couple.  The food was really tasty and they had a wee paragraph about each star signs eating habits and they were actually pretty spot on! 

We woke up early on our last day in Jaipur so that we could go to the monkey temple before heading to our bus.  We got a tuk tuk along to the bottom of the path and it was only a twenty minute walk or so up to the temple.  The temple isn't anything spectacular but there are 5000 monkeys living around the temple which was very cool to see.  I'm not sure we saw that many but there was a lot.  We bought some nuts at the bottom of the path and they showed us how we should give them to the monkeys to make sure we don't get scratched.  When we started walking up the hill one monkey came trundling along towards us, I duly held a nut in the way we were shown but the wee *beep came and grabbed the whole bag out of my other hand!! 

Our bus journey to Agra was a bit of a white knuckle ride! They drive like absolute maniacs here! They don't need to get a licence here which probably has a lot to do with it.  They quite often drive the wrong way around roundabouts and we encountered quite a few trucks driving towards us on the wrong side of the duel carriageway, whatever they were up to.  We arrived in Agra quite late but our accommodation was really nice and had a view of the Taj Mahal from the roof top restaurant.

We woke up really early (5am) so we could go and see the sunrise at the Taj Mahal.  We spent a few hours here taking photos.  It's so impressive and very beautiful, especially seeing all the different colours as the sun rises.  The Taj Mahal is a symbol of love but here are some interesting facts you may not know: 

1.  Mumtaz was Shahjahan's 4th(!!) wife out of 7!

2. Shahjahan killed Mumtaz's husband so he could marry her

3. Mumtaz died during her 14th(!!) labour

4. After her death Shahjahan married Mumtaz's sister!!

There are other things to do in Agra apart from the Taj but we decided to spend the day catching up on our laundry and writing and sending some postcards.  We should have bought some postcards from each place that we've been but instead had to settle for sending mostly postcards of the Taj Mahal.  We managed to find a few that weren't of the Taj but they look like they were produced in the 70's!  We met the Scottish/Aussie couple again at the Taj...I think they're following us around India!  Our laundry man was one of the nicest people we've met.  He was so happy and jolly and when we brought him our washing he made us sit with him and have chai and then more chai when we collected it.  We are both addicted to chai and can never decline an offer of sweet lovely chai.

We left Agra early the next morning and took a train down to Khajuraho. Khajuraho is famous for having temples which are carved with erotic images, these are said to be based on the Kama Sutra.  It's quite a small place and so we managed to visit all the temples over the two days that we were there.  Our accommodation in Khajuraho was amazing, they came to collect us at the train station which was a lovely surprise and took the stress away of having to negotiate a tuk tuk ourselves.  we were stuck in doors on the first night when there was torrential rain, and so they taught us to play an Indian card game which was more or less poker and we taught them to play rummy.  We went for some cake and chai at a wee patisserie type shop here.  Our eyes were bigger than our bellies though and we couldn't even finish the scrumptious cake.  What was not scrumptious, was the chai.  I started to drink mine and thought it tasted weird so I asked Kay but she was still so bunged up with the cold that she couldn't really taste anything.  I drank some more and again thought it tasted weird when I suddenly saw the label on the tea bag which was still in the cup....it was Earl Grey! A warning to anyone that hasn't had the misfortune of trying it, Earl Grey with milk and sugar is rancid! Kay's was lemon tea (!) with milk and sugar but fortunately for her she couldn't taste it!

Only a week left in India which is making us sad :( time has flown in so quickly and at the same time Mumbai feels like a million years ago.