Down and dirty in Jaipur

The day started off at silly o'clock, 5am to get up and out for a 6:30am train to Jaipur, fortunately it was only a 5hr trip so we'd have the afternoon to mooch around, and we needed it. The train was lovely with it seemed constant food and drink being offered, I spotted the tannoy announcements being done by a man with a tape recorder, not quite as you'd expect in this day and age, still the train worked and we got in on time.

Just like New Delhi train station, we'd been warned about the taxi touts and told to head straight for the pre-pay tuttuts, so we did although got the usual followed along which led to us being taken to the wrong hotel, whose fault it was who knows but its a shame that the few devious people here end up making one sceptical of all, when most people have been very friendly.

The hotel is just as expected and almost on its knees, a sort of Indian Faulty Towers, a grand old building which has been left and no needs some serious repair work, that said the staff are friendly, the rooms nice and it has a pool which I may brave in a bit.

We thought we'd pop down to down for a coffee but soon realised the map we'd been given wasn't to scale, plus every hundred yards someone wants to offer you a rickshaw, if I wanted a bloody rickshaw I would ask for one and wouldn't be walking!!:) Yet again there's few westerners around which doesn't help us out. Finally we found our tried and tested coffee house chain and a while later thought we'd get a rickshaw back to the hotel, this would be our first and maybe last rickshaw of the trip. Firstly we forgot to check that our rickshaw driver was upto the job, geting on for 55-60 and of a slender built probably wasn't the best choice, and so we set off at a pace just greater than walking.

So time later and knowing he wasn't taking us in the right direction, he stops and points to what should be our hotel, but no he'd got it wrong, we decided to get out and try a tut-tut instead, after explaining to a driver where we want to go and with a map in hand we set off, again in the wrong direction, we did finally make it back somewhere near our hotel but think we may need to have a plan before we set out again!:)