Jaipur

Where: Jaipur – the Pink City, only called the Pink City because “The City where stray pigs, goats and dogs fight over rubbish thrown into the street to rot and decay” wouldn’t have fitted on a postcard.

Jaipur...as close as you want to get without a full body-suit

Where (less detailed): hell on earth, otherwise Rajisthan, India

Weather: hard to tell as the stench from the streets forms a natural seal to the heavens. Quite hot though.

the Amber Fort...away from the city

Temperature: about 34 degrees

Food: very good but the city was such a state that we were too shell-shocked to venture out from the hotel, and when we did it was only to another hotel.

Hawa Mahal...designed to allow Royal ladies to view the city without having to step in its crap

Locals: not so bad but just millions of them and every one a graduate in “Blatant and Prolonged Leering at Western Women.”

Adventures/Highlights/Lowlights: our shock at our Lonely Planet-recommended hotel which must have been converted from a state mental hospital just hours before our arrival....our joy at our second hotel which was a beautiful and lavishly decorated oasis of calm... our first real culture shock as we step out of our taxi into a maelstrom of hussle, bussle and small hillocks of street garbage...the inability of every motorist to travel ten foot without honking his horn...Paul throwing a wobbly at the Yoga instructor who switched the class setting from the rooftop veranda to the small patch of mud behind the pool...Paul throwing a wobbly at the friend of our tuk-tuk driver who tagged along to be “friendly” and not to try and persuade us to visit his friend’s restaurant or emporium of tat and ill-fitting t-shirts...

obligatory arty shot

Amber fort - now that’s what I call a Palace; the residence of the Raj of Jaipur and his 300 wives, although only 2 were officially wives... City Palace, now that’s what I call a Palace - the city residence of the Raj but probably not the 300 wives as it is quite a bit smaller...Tiger Fort, the palace of a later Raj, built for his wife who could look out over the city without having to go into it - now there’s a smart woman - incidentally not much of a palace, or a Fort for that matter, but a damn sight better than Kochi’s effort...Rhaani’s worst nightmare; after descending six narrow flights of pigeon-infested stairs finding the exit door had been locked from the outside...discovering our travel blog has turned us into global superstars as now Indian families stop and ask to have their photos taken with us...finding out our 6hr evening train to Amritsar didn’t leave for another two days and actually took 18hrs, and there weren’t any air-con beds available, only the general sleep carriages we enjoyed the last time...our new travel plan, a 5hr bus to Delhi then a 6hr train to Amritsar....discovering we’re the worst travellers ever as after our 2 days exploring the sights we decide we should take a “pool day” and vow not to leave the hotel compound for the next 24hrs, who cares about the “real India”...

The Golden Palace

No of poos Rhaani had in last 12hrs: 4

Overall: the new benchmark for squalor, people whose job it is to clean up bodies that have been left to decompose for weeks would surely recoil with revulsion at the sight of this place... We have never experienced such horror...

dont worry....I rarely get burned on me neck

Up next: Dehli, still India