So in my last blog post I got up to Pushkar and after Pushkar we arrived in Jaipur: famous as the Pink City. So now we’ve been to the Golden, Blue, White and Pink Cities! In Jaipur, we visited the famous fort on the top of a huge hill. Last time I came to India we actually got an elephant ride up there! But the whole thing we found out after was pretty cruel and mean for the elephants 😦 so this time we got Shiri to take us up instead. When buying tickets for the fort men and women have to go in separate queues which was odd. It is a popular visitor attraction so the queues were big, I got to the front before Ste and was buying our tickets when a French man starts punching me on the shoulder trying to get me to buy his ticket! Now I had had enough of the Indian people not being aware of personal space and was practically giving a woman a piggy back the whole queue so I was not having some European foreigner trying to push in and get in my space too. I told him where to go and he was not happy, but we finally made it through the madness! The views of the city were impressive, like a mini Great Wall of China, and it was cool to wander the corridors of this huge fort and get lost. Again a lot of Indian tourists so a lot of stares which was becoming really exhausting by this point. I know that culturally in India it’s not considered rude to stare so you just need to accept it but it’s definitely hard to adjust. You stare back and that doesn’t stop them, you point back in return and it doesn’t stop them, you ignore them, pull faces but nothing! Still, we enjoyed the fort and after we visited the famous palace in Jaipur. To the outside it looked like a huge structure but the walls are actually hollow and just a façade which was strange.
That night we went back to our hotel and that was eventful! I think the main hotel worker was a bit drunk, the wifi only worked in the lobby so Ste was down there and I had gone up to get my phone out of the room. When I came out he was trying to talk to me, gave me a flower and was just a bit awkward. Anyway after a while we came up to bed and Steve got a shower. Now the shower window is frosted glass but goes out into the corridor. Suddenly he turns around and the hotel guy has his face pressed against the window trying to look in! I guess he thought I was in there but who knows he might be into Steve. Anyway Ste went MENTAL. Out in his towel while the guy denied everything. Soooo creepy, I was glad we were leaving the next day! What if it was me in there! We told our driver the next morning and he joined Ste in going crazy at the guy. In the end we got a free room out of it soooo what a pervert but there’s a silver lining!
We also visited some other touristy spots but by this time we were kind of over them. That sounds awful!! But a bit like Thailand, once you’ve seen 5 temples you’ve seen them all; in India once you’ve seen a few forts and city palaces they all kind of blur into one. We did some more shopping in Jaipur, we went to a printing place where they talked us through a method famous in Jaipur called block printing where they basically stamp designs onto huge bits of material. It was interesting to see the old hand crafted methods that are used – common in India but seemingly rare in the rest of the world! Jaipur is also famous for jewellery, mum got a really nice bracelet last time we came which was worth over double when we got home! But this time me and Ste just looked at all the stuff we won’t be affording anytime soon!
The next morning, we took another long drive to Agra famous for the Taj Mahal. On the way there we stopped off at a really cool place that I totally have forgotten the name of. We had to get a little rickety bus up to it and when you first enter its all big courtyards and ruins. I think where one of the old kings used to live. Then on one side you walk down a long passage and there is a huge mosque. We had to take our shoes off to go in and my God was that ground hot! I honestly thought my feet my burn and blister I don’t know how they walk on it so casually! The structure of the building was incredible and it was nice to get a glimpse into Muslim religion as we have seen so much of Buddhist and Hindu recently. By the time we left and got to Agra it was evening so we just went straight for dinner. Apart from the Taj Mahal, Agra is a bit of a dive so we weren’t fussed about exploring too much. Tora recommended a great restaurant to go to which we went to and stuffed our bellies.
The next morning we were up at 5:15am to be at the Taj Mahal at 6am in time for it opening. You can see the sunrise, there are fewer crowds and the temperature is a lot cooler. I was really excited to see if it lived up to my memory of it and if anything it was even more spectacular. We had a guide to explain to us the love story behind it and give us some of its history. He was also keen to give us a mini photoshoot which was funny. The building itself is just enormous and entirely symmetrical. It is a mausoleum to the mogul king’s wife who died giving birth to his 16th child (poor woman). The only thing that ruins the symmetry is the king himself, his wife is buried dead centre and when he died they buried him next to her so he ruins it! The four pillars surrounding the main structure are all slightly off 90 degrees so that if there was an earthquake they would not fall onto the mausoleum itself. So much thought and insight for something built like 400 years ago! The whole thing took 22 years to build and over 20,000 men. Interestingly the king actually had 3 wives, but obvs didn’t like the other 2 as much and they got in comparison a shed at either side of the entry way. So after leaving our guide, we explored on our own and had another mini photoshoot. The whole place really is incredible and it’s easy to see why it is one of the 7 wonders of the world.
After, we were taken to a shop where they showed us how they carve the marble like the Taj Mahal which was really interesting and managed to persuade us to buy more stuff (we have no willpower). After we took the drive back to Delhi where we got some dinner and headed to bed. The next day Shiri took us round the sights of Delhi which were good but unimpressive to us in comparison to what we had seen in Rajasthan! It was nice to be in a car though and not be constantly hassled. After he dropped us at the airport where we said goodbye. It was a great decision to get a driver, especially after the hassle with Varanasi I dread to think what the rest of the trains would be like. We thought we were pretty generous with our tip but he got a bit funny at that point. Oh well! I still thought he was good and he helped us out loads.
So we flew to Sri Lanka that evening and that’s where we are now. So the next blog post may be the last one! India was amazing and a really fantastic experience, we’re so glad we went.
See you soon!
Abby Goes Travelling! 