Jaipur: The next leg

Plane landed into a very quite airport and we were met by a man holding a sign for a "Miss Jackson" which we took to mean Miss Jenkins and followed to his aged but functional (despite the loudly whining differential) 4x4. Given the late hour traffic was very reasonable and shortly after arrived at our hotel, The Madhuban. This appeared to us as quite dark and very quiet which was a delightful prospect for a decent nights sleep.
Just in case our bodies were not confused enough, the temperature was approx 15 degrees lower than Mumbai. This hotel was most agreeable with a hot and cold shower (something I shall never take for granted ever again!) decent beds, Wi-Fi and air-con.

The night porter who we later discovered actually sleeps under the reception desk didn't say a lot but was always pleasant. We were awoken early morning by a thunderstorm we enjoyed a nice breakfast and decided to go for a stroll to the train station as tours of Jaipur were advertised to depart from here! This was a blatant lie and so was the somewhat childish map providing the distance unless of course it was dictated by a pigeon flying directly. This made a lot of sense as every tuk-tuk that passed and offered us a lift seemed to laugh when we refused their persistent attempts to bring us "wherever you want to go sir". We also had the misfortune of witnessing many public urinations which if nothing else at least confirmed what the odour was. Having quickly realised the only tour we were likely to get at the station was not going to be a pleasant one we carried on walking. After about 2 hours (no joke) we tracked the Pink City (now now people reign in those dirty minds), this was impressive although did leave me pondering how many years ago it got its name.

We then found a recommended rooftop restaurant (Peacock) on a hotel nearby (Hotel Pearl Palace) to ours that served beer! Even as someone who does not drink beer I can safely say that was the nicest beer ever. Oh yes we also had a delicious meal.

Pink City Junction: Note the cows roaming around and the guy standing in the middle of the junction with his bags waiting for a bus

Day 2 In Jaipur
We booked a driver for the day as walking to the sights was just not going to be feasible. Driver arrived on time in a micro car (when o when will we have a proper car!)

We first went to City Palace passing through the Pink City again. The palace was big and had varying exhibits dotted about inside including Garment and Armoury exhibions. The Garments were interesting with an amazing level of detail given the fact that they were hundreds of years old. The Armoury was full of swords, blades and other seriously gruesome ways to die (photos were not permitted in here obviously). We then saw the largest silver jugs in the world according to the Guinness book of records, pretty impressive as they melted 14,000 silver coins for each one.

City Palace Jaipur

City Palace Jaipur

It was then enroute to the Amber fort that our "comedian" of a taxi driver started to grate on me but anyway the Amber Fort is huge and sitting atop a mountain provided some very impressive views all round. As with all attractions we had many offers of guides around the fort as "what we understand about anything" without their expert/extortionate experience. Once inside we had a close encounter with an elephant who did not seem overly impressed with his day job; carrying lazy, obese foreigners up the considerable hill incline to the entrance. The hazy sunshine seemed to add to the views with the insanely symmetrical gardens appearing to have risen from the lake below.

Views from the Fort

On leaving the fort the taxi driver seemed to think that the longer he delayed the more money he would get and became increasingly brave with his comments and genuinely irritating laugh. We took a number of detours and our car seemed incapable of any more than 20mph even having time to stop for a pee pee and checking that we understood what this would mean. Even Linda`s advice of imminent vomiting didn't expedite our arrival. He did not receive any extra money or a tip or a goodbye as one felt leaving him with his horrific teeth reward enough.

A nice coffee in the hotel gardens preceded another thunderstorm with hail stones the size of golf balls denting cars and setting of every alarm within earshot. Pretty impressive lightning too.

As we knew we could have a beer with dinner we returned to the Peacock.

Alarms set for 4:30am for our 6am train to Delhi.

Mumbai Days 2, 3 and 4

So yesterday we decided to move hotels simply to get more central to the things we wanted to do. If I'm honest I preferred our first hotel but the location of where we are now is probably better.

Our journey to this side of town took approximately 2 hours, the hottest 2 of the day in a Bedford rascal "Suzuki maruti super carry here" which had no aircon other than wind down Windows.

We dropped our bags at the hotel and went to see the Gate of India, Taj Mahal Hotel and the Prince of Wales museum on foot. These obviously are interesting places to see and feel their respective atmospheres. The Gate has many many tourists and many more "entrepreneurs" including the very friendly chap and his friend who kindly advised me of having something in my ear and even offered to take it out for me! I am sure that there was no hidden agenda!! The Taj hotel is quite opulent and even the star bucks had armed guards and an airport style metal detector, presumably no reflection on the clientele.
The museum was full of information about many different things forming part of Mumbai 's history rather unceremoniously curtailed when a guard blew a whistle and turned off the lights meaning the museum is now closed, leave immediately.

Having done all this, the search for food began! This took a brisk 80 mins and helped us to enjoy the Indian/Chinese/English meal with whole restaurant to ourselves. On the bright side no disturbing toilet related consequences thank God.

The hotel we're currently in describes itself as follows " The Corporate Budget hotel - quality and service is our motto" which based on this would upgrade Fawlty Towers to top class establishment! Our "double deluxe room" is "intimate" (I.e not enough room to swing one of the many malnourished cats that reside about the building) and made even more so by the addition of an extra bed/couch cushion which must be "disassembled" before opening the door. We were even treated to a wonderful sonorous soundtrack of a kango hammer which appeared on the road outside to begin work at 10pm, I for one gave a standing ovation once the performance eventually concluded some time after 2:2:30am

It was hot today and just to out this into context........................ I have been uncomfortably hot in cooler saunas!

Having said all of this we did see some wonderful sights enroute to Elefanta Island which took an hour long ferry. On arrival on the island we gratefully purchased some freshly cut watermelon and water. As I was not willing to give these items to a very assertive monkey a somewhat short stand-off ensued! I WON! I would have been willing to share however as he attempted to absconde with the entire plate there could be only one winner! The island was however quite beautiful with huge ornate caves carved into the mountains as well as spectacular views following the exhaustive climb to the top all in all worth the visit.

For those that haven't already guessed this update has been written by Shane.....day 3 to be continued.....

The three of us leaving Malad for central Mumbai

The Prince if Wales Museum

Elephanta Caves

Outside the Elephanta caves

The stairs leading to our 4th floor hotel

Our Mumbai adventure continued with a walk to the main train station in Mumbai which lead us through a street market which in fairness if you couldn't find what you were looking for, you did not require any earthly object in any case. The train station is magnificent on the outside with architecture any city should be proud of however inside left you feeling like part of a national geographic documentary on the internals of an ant hill! People of London, take note, no train or tube station at rush hour could match the bustle of this place, seriously.

The nightly temperature seemed to increase drastically and was not conducive to sleep as your options were hot and sweaty or cold and addled by the noisy albeit melodious compared to the damned kango air con!

The next days priority was to find a dentist as Geri needed to get this tooth sorted out. Incredibly brave (or insane in my opinion at least) we found a dentist. She did speak English at least as the receptionist did not! 20 mins later all sorted. I notoriously can't handle dentists when there is no possibility of mis-interpretation.

Having now covered Mumbai we decided it was time to scram. Plane booked to Jaipur and off we go again in a very hot miniature taxi, bags "tied" to the roof nice and "secure". The ride as before was a symphony of beeping and sheer luck. I obviously caught the eye of the airport police man who although pleasant was intimidating enough to make you realise this is NOT Ireland or England. Mumbai 's budget airline could certainly teach Mr O'Leary and "robair" a lesson in how it's meant to be done which was a welcome surprise.

Mumbai

We've arrived! The flight was fine but the drive from the airport to the hotel was interesting to say the least. It's a bit of a culture shock, I'm not sure anyone here needs to pass a driving test or there's any rules of the road!

We're going to chill out for a bit before we venture out.

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So we ventured out and came back very dirty. We had someone to show us round which was a good thing in the end. He just took us into the thick of things, no one has right of way pedestrians or drivers and horns are constantly being beeped at you.

He took to his home to see how they live, which consisted of 3 rooms, a hall where we assume they slept, a kitchen and a bathroom. We met his family and chatted a bit about life in Mumbai.

We finished the night with a meal in what's probably considered a posh restaurant by indian standards but it was the closest restaurant to the hotel and after walking a few miles sit was the easiest option.

We're currently having a room service breakfast, not really what we expecting. I'm not sure if we just didn't get up in time and they were sick of waiting for us to come down and called our room or if its the norm.

We're going to form a plan for today and get moving, ill update you all later with day 2.

As a side note anyone got any advice on a dentist, I broke a filling yesterday and I'm not sure what to do. It's not sore but I've got a hole in my tooth which I don't thinking should leave. Any suggestions?