Jaipur

Although Jaipur is another bustling city we both felt it was completely different to our experiences in Delhi. We jumped in a Tuktuk at 10am which cost us 400 rupees for the entire day, roughly five and a half pounds! Lucki our driver was amazing. He too us to the Hawa Mahal (temple), Janter Mantar (observatory), Albert Hall, Nahagarah Fort and Amber Fort. The Jantar Mantar observatory was pretty incredlble. It was made up of loads of massive sundials that could tell the time to the nearest 2 seconds. The Albert Hall was quite a large museum, showing artifacts of all sorts. Swords, guns, detailed vases and ornaments, and an addition of the Qu'ran which Alex had no trouble reading as she speaks Arabic. Having Lucki was a Godsend as we were able too experience part of the Indian culture that we would never have been able to if it wasnt for him. En route to the Nahagarah Fort which was situated up in the mountains and surrouded the city with the “Great Wall of Jaipur”, we stopped a Hindi Temple. Upon entering we were met by a very domineering hindi priest – spitting image of the chief villager in India Jones and the Temple of Doom, long grey beard, painted face, earrings etc – who blessed us, thus allowing us to enter. Ths consisted of taking off our shoes, sitting in front of their God, having a holy mark put on our forheads, drinking holy water and eating some sugar crystals. After this we climbed the tower in the Temple with Lucki, giving to us the most impressive view, look out over the whole of Jaipur and the mountains. We made our way to the Amber Fort, back down the mountain in this little Tuktuk, overtaking all sorts of vehicles round bends in the potholed and broken road. The Amber Fort was vast and seemed somewhat a challenge to walk to the top, but we manned up and did it. Again this was completely worth the effort as we got more stunning views from a different watchpoint, this time looking over the lake at the bottom of the Fort. Lucki had stopped to show us the “Water Palace” a massive temple for the Maharagah that is soon to be turned into a Hotel. It is situated in the middle of the lake, only access to it is by boat. We were told there are another 3 buildings underneath the water that you only had access to via the main temple; you could clearly see this incredible site from the Amber Fort.
The day was pretty insane, enjoying every moment, taking in the stunning surroundings n the 30 degree heat, truly starting to comprehend why we decided to come to India n the first place.
The next day we spent chilling in the Krishna Palace Hotel, all this running around was getting tiresome and we had a lot of catching up to do in terms of emails, and booking hotels/trains for the next few days.