Day 100-102 Jaipur

Our train journey to Jaipur was much less crazy than our previous one.

We still had trouble finding out which platform it was, and if it was on time we'd have missed it. Luckily, it was an hour late!

We got sleeper seat tickets this time, so we had allocated slots. Apart from a group of lads underneath us blatantly making jokes about us the whole time, it was just fine.

After getting hounded by rickshaw (tuk tuk) drivers, we walked around 1.5km before finding our hotel, mostly due to different people sending us round in circles when we asked for directions. That along with 30+ heat made it a bit rough but we were glad when we found it!

A tip for other travellers suffering from the rickshaw driver problem..if you act a little weird and pull a face similar to the below, they just drive off straight away ha! 

The view from our rooftop restaurant was amazing..

  

We ate some lovely food and got bribed into writing a trip advisor review in exchange for some masala tea.

Then hunted down an ice cream place we spotted earlier.. YUM!

The following day, we checked in to a hotel over the road, called Pearl Palace.

We were told it gets booked up quickly and could see why straight away. The decor was beautiful and the price is really budget too

We followed a walk around the Pink City, which we found in the Lonely Planet books.

We started with breakfast at Old Green Tandoori Dhaba. Other places have named their restaurants after it but luckily we figured out which one it was.

It was lovely!!

Next, we were on a mission to find 'Lassiwana'. It's supposed to be the place for Lassis in India and they normally sell out by 4pm.

Again, we saw about four 'Lassi Wana's before we found the right one. It was easy to spot though because there were so many locals outside.

It was so nice too!! It's kind of like a mix between yoghurt, milk and in this case ice cream!

Next, we went inside the Pink City Gates and made our way around.

We went through various markets. Shoes..

Saris..

Jewellery, pots, pans, cushions.. everything!

All of the colours were so vibrant and it was nice being inside the walls and away from the crazy traffic.

We went to Hawamahal.. which was built by a poet in 1799 and is known as 'Palace of the Winds'.

And then to Jantar Mantar, which has the largest and well preserved five observatories, erected in early 18th Century. 

On the way back, our final stop was the Indian Coffee House. We awkardly sat in the mens section at first but soon saw the signs for 'women and families'. No one seemed to care though.

We shared 'dosa' and 'pakura'. They came with sauces to dip into it and it was all so nice!

We went up to our hotels rooftop restaurant 'Peacock' in the evening. It looked beautiful.. another sure sign of why it gets booked up so fast!

We had milk flavoured with Saffron, cardamom and ginger, as well as some deserts (and had some more the next morning).

*Apologies if I've lost you in a sea of words and waffle already but it seems there's just so much to say? Tea break advised now.*

So, the following day, we planned to go to Agra Fort, Tiger Fort and Albert Hall.

We agreed to pay a driver 650rupees (£6.50) to take us to all three.

But on the way, we crashed into a cow. Or a water buffalo. It was massive anyways and pretty scary.

After a minute or two, the cow stood up and limped off to the rest of the cattle and a very angry shepherd (I'm not totally sure if that's what he was).

After that we drove somewhere else where the driver spoke to some men.

Then to another place, where he spoke to more men and swapped his damaged car for another one.

Of course, we had no idea what was being said but cows are a sacred animal in India so everybody worships them and frowns upon anyone who would hurt them.

The driver was right in saying the cow suddenly turned into the road though, so I hope they believed him.    

We arrived at Agra Fort shortly after..

On the way up, Jack started feeling ill and didn't want to go any further.

It was an brilliant place though.. and the views were amazing!

We got a flavour of what celebrity-ism would be like though, with locals stopping us literally every minute asking for photos.

It made me realise I would never like to be a celebrity, as everything took twice as long and we saw half as much as we could have otherwise.

Once we got back down, we met Jack, who'd been really sick whilst we were gone. So we asked our driver to take us back to the hotel, stopping on the way for poor Jack.

Marie and me ate a lovely meal. I got all of this for £1!! (There was a slight mix up in prices but we still got it for £1 in the end).

At 10pm, we got picked up by Asgar, a man we'd met earlier that day.

He was with some others too, who we'd also met.

Soon, we were on our way to a hotel.. and the day after, we'd be getting filmed as extras in a Bollywood movie!

Next stop.. Pushkar (and a bit of Bollywood stardom).