Its been a very long 3 days in Jaipur

Welcome to the great, dry state of Rajasthan. On the whole Rajasthan is well worth a look thanks to the huge number of forts dotted all over it's enourmous hills. We are planning on spending a fair bit of time climbing all over the various ancient structures in each town we visit.

Our first stop after entering the state was the city of Jaipur, also known as 'The Pink City' since according to all the guidebooks you read the majority of the buildings here are painted pink. Maybe they were a while ago, but nowadays there are only a handful of streets that have any sort of colour resembling pink painted onto the buildings, which are then overlaid with a decade's worth of dirt, dust and stains from public urination and chewing tobacco. The walls to the 'Old City', which is a walled area in the city contained markets and the royal palace, are still mostly pink, but are just a pink drop in an ocean of brown when you take the rest of the sprawling, faded city into account.

I won't spend this whole post bashing Jaipur back into the sand, but i will make one last negative comment before moving on with the usual pleasantries of where we have been in town - The people here REALLY want our money. I know that there are beggars, touts and con artists in every town and city in Asia, but everything here is totally out of proportion. For example, there are more beggars here than would suit the relatively low level of visible poverty. To put it in perspective, we think back to places like Delhi, Agra and (especially) Kolkata where most people were well below the poverty line, and yet the number of people actually nagging us for money all day was a LOT less. Furthermore, in every town until now the locals have loved having their photos taken by us, and thats that. In Jaipur however, they ask for a photo, and then stick out there hand asking for cash, as if they had just provided a service of some kind. It makes it extremely hard to feel pity for the people, let alone give them money, when every man and his dog has their hand (or paw) out. Even well dressed, neatly pressed school children would ask for 'ten rupees' as they walk past us with their mates. Women fitted out in immaculate saris, sitting down in a stall having tea would stop what they are doing just to come and insist on money from us. I guess it annoys me mainly because 1) i know a lot of the people asking simply do not need my 10 rupees, and 2) they pretty well never ask their fellow locals for money, JUST us. Now, will someone please take this damn soapbox and give it to a beggar to use as firewood.

Where was I? Jaipur. What a wondeful city. After exploring the crowded, narrow streets of the old city on our first day here, we decided the next day to climb the second tallest hill in town to see the local version of 'The Monkey Temple' aka - Temple of the Sun God. not much of a temple, but wow, what a view. We didnt realise how much space this city takes up. it is enormous, yet very few of the buildings are over three stories. from the temple we could see onto the flat roofs of all the buildings in town, and it was fun doing some distant people-watching for a while. Roofs here are basically the closest thing that people have to a backyard, and everything you can think of other than a barbeque was going on atop the roofs, INCLUDING games of cricket (i reckon the 6-and-out rule would be in FULL EFFECT here).

The next day, we decided that we werent tired enough, so we climbed the TALLEST hill in town, all the way up to the major fort of Jaipur, known as Nahargarh Fort. It was a mighty impressive structure, and it was hard to believe how many times the thing had been taken by sieging forces, back in the days when it was in use as something other than a tourist magnet. as expected, there was a top view of the city from all the way up there, and along with the old architecture of the fort itself, it was a great day out.

Tonight we are boarding another sleeper-class train bound for the city of Bikaner, and we will let you know how things go down there.

Till then!
//Brendan