Well hello and where do I start?
Day 1

After a long flight we landed in Jaipur. It is the capital of the Rajasthan state and is named ‘The Pink City’ because the city was painted pink to welcome the Prince of Wales Edward VII in 1876.  

We managed to get a taxi and off we started on our adventure.  Well what can I say ‘OMG’. The traffic is unbelievable. On the roads you will find taxis, tuk tuks, lorries, buses, hundreds of scooters, cows and elephants (yes you read right) 
all trying to get from A to B as fast as they can. That means squeezing into a space that is obviously not big enough for your vehicle and nudging forward until the vehicles next to you give way, beeping your horns as you go. If you have to go up the dual carriageway on the wrong side then that seems to go as well. 

We booked into our Haveli which is a historic private mansion. These days they have been made into hotels. It was beautiful. An oasis inside when only steps away was chaos. We were taken up to our room which was decorated with hand carved wood furniture and painted with Indian patterns. We chose this a haveli because it looked so traditionally Indian. 

After a couple of hours sleep we ventured out into the ‘chaos’ which is the only word to describe Jaipur. Although in the haveli there were other ‘white skinned’ people, on the streets there were none. Just us. Were we noticed. Oh yes. We encountered stares which started first at my face and then down to my bare legs and giggles (would have loved to know what they were saying). Some people (only men) would ask where we from and seemed to be genuinely interested in us. We were stopped by hundreds of tuk tuks wanting our business. We talked to one who offered to take us out for the next day for 500 rupees, a bargain (just over £5). We couldnt find anywhere to eat, we seemed to be in an industrial area. If we had wanted our scooter fixed we were landed. But restaurants or cafes none to be found. There were some street stalls but as we have never tried them in India I wasn’t ready on my first day. So we back to the hotel for food and an early night. 

Day 2

The next day we ventured out in the tuk tuk. He first took us to his colony where he lived to a man who would change our old 500 rupee notes that we could not use but had left over from our previous visit. (the Indian prime minister had taken them out of use 3 weeks before our trip and introduced a new 500 notes and a new 2000 note). India is not really hard to get money. No money at the atms and no cash. Trying to pay as much as we could by card. Our hotel did change some money but at a poor rate. Graham was a bit hesitant passing over his 13 notes (about £80). We were offered 400 rupees for each note and were grateful that we could get something for them. 

So, off we went in our tuk tuk amongst the chaotic Jaipur streets. I had to cover my eyes several times especially when our driver went down the whole street the wrong way with buses trucks and bikes coming at us.  😳  But when in India hey. We visited the lovely and very impressive Amer Fort known as the Amber Fort because of the pink stone. Previously lived in by a king and his 12 wives. We really enjoyed it here. 

Our driver had bought us flower garlands and insisted we wore them into the Fort. We later learnt why. Graham said look there’s a monkey looking at you. This man said he wants your flower so I started to break off a flower when the monkey ran up to me and tugged the garland from around my neck and ran away to eat it. Another did it to graham. We did laugh as well as everyone around us. 

We also visited the elephant sanctuary. Here they have rescued 125 elephants who have been mistreated and they rely on tourists to fund their upkeep. We met an elephant and had a scary ride around the ‘jungle’. 

The driver took us to a restaurant where we had a lovely meal. I can really recommend kadhai chicken with jeera rice and I was good I had a plain nan (not a yummy butter one). 

Day 3

We decided to explore Jaipur on foot and saw lots of stalls, selling everything from spices, clothes, kites, sweets. The smells here were lovely. On the other hand I’m not sure the Indian people have any sense of smell. Every now and then the smell would be horrendous. The only way I could cope was holding my breath for as long as I could and keep walking. By the time I ran out of breath hopefully the smell would be gone. I did t listen to Graham when he said let’s walk back the same way and said ‘no down here’. Yes we got lost and ended up in alley ways where people worked and lived. Not scary but very dirty. 

Day 4

We woke up early to catch the 6 am train and obviously didn’t get there early enough. Omg. You have never seen anything like it. Hundreds of people going to work or going on a trip. Again we only saw a couple of white skins. A curling snake queue to get into the station and then to find our train. We asked and they pointed down there. Well you should see how long the station was. I started to panic that we wouldn’t find it or make it but we did eventually and god I was out of breath(good exercise though). We found our seats which were very comfortable and began our 7 hour journey to Udaipur. Even this was an experience. We were seated opposite an Indian family who brought there breakfast with them. Ours was bananas and juice. There’s was chapatis and some sort of curried potato. I sat opposite the nana who burped and coughed. 😝

Anyway hope you enjoyed reading and will post again about our adventures in Udaipur.