Jaipur 6 | bellsandtrance's Blog

Subject: Jaipur 6

Although our rooms are very comfortable I had a terrible sleep as I had nightmares of naked blue holy men chasing me with their tridents. India must be ingrained in my psyche already ...crazy stuff.
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Jaipur also known as the pink city is situated about 250 Km east of Delhi. It is known as the pink city as most of its older buildings were built with limestone that has a pinkish glow. All the other buildings in the old city - a section of the town, have now also been painted pink. Jaipur is in the desert and is surrounded by scrubby mountains. It's a beautiful city. It has modern skyscrapers and just feels cleaner and better organized than any of the other cites we have been to so far.
Population is four million.
The traffic is much tamer although still much wilder than SA. The people actually wear helmets here!
Milap our driver and a new very smooth talking guide picked us up for a city tour. It's a lot of fun just driving in India. There is so much to see just looking out the windows. There are camels pulling carts and buses and tuck tucks and rickshaws all the usual suspects. Cows cows and more cows all ambling and cruising along, oblivious to any traffic or they just don't give a moo. The sidewalks are full of hawkers selling their wares, vegetables and fruit. Beautiful and fresh, we have all been eating a lot of bananas, Hanuman really loves that!

We went up to the royal palace....by Shiva these people really had plenty of money, slaves, craftsmen, jewels and lots of free time. All the buildings are absolute masterpieces and each actually justifies a whole day or more to see everything...no kidding!
That blasted Varanasi train trip gave us all such a bad cold/flue that we were like a bunch of glassy eyed druggies oohing and aahing. Man we were tired and all a bit sick and feverish...so off we went into our coves of peace and tranquility for an afternoon of sleep...oh no wait we have young kids, I rephrase, an afternoon of squabbling and jumping and screaming but yes we managed a rest in between chaos.

Later Charmaine and I snuck off to meet our supplier of gems and silver. Its so cool Milap,our driver takes us anywhere anytime. I feel like a real member of the royal family he waits patiently for us, opens doors, is in house security and translator, he does any errand we ask him(buying water, getting snacks, baby sitting, giving in our laundry ...hotel too expensive, getting smokes ...which kind madam, anything you want Milap is your man) Very very nice guy. So was our supplier. We were served chai and it took many hours. Well we selected our wares it was so much, so much fun! Or should I say "it was much much fun for us" ......going back in two days for final pricing and all. Only got back after dark. Will tell more.

Now back to the food....Mmmh well.
Curry can only be good for so many days in a row. No meat ie NO holy cow, at all anywhere in the whole of this country as big as a continent....(it's highly highly offensive to even ask such questions) ..I am starting to fantasize about fillet steak real bad. We have eggs and fruit and toast for breakfast. Very good. American flavored lays chips for lunch and bananas most days(the chips have a vague curry flavour) or that's probably just my imagination! We have found no real supermarkets its all a mish mash of tongaat like shops. Don't get me wrong the food is good but very little variety for the western pallet. Tonight they had lamb curry hey yay yay, something other than chicken and guess what it was flaming burning lip smacking hot! Charmaine and I sent ours back and Ma diluted hers with yoghurt. Madam this is the real Rajasthani curry that we like to eat in our homes...yes it is quite spiced. What? Quite spiced not flaming hot? No madam not really as we are a desert state we like to use chilli in our food. Oh ok.
We end up stuffing our faces on desert, hence the total weight gain. I would be very skinny indeed if I lived here and had to eat off the streets. Charmaine and I each had one Bloody Mary last night at the hotel and whoa the bill was R240 yes that's right R120 each. Five star hotel always pay more madam, I'm like ok pass me the water. Anyway I'm not moaning, the curries and dhaal and paneers are all really delicious it's just that it gets hectic eating curry every night for five weeks....you know what I mean? Today Declan was saying ma why do we get the same food every night? ( pasta and red sauce 6 nights in a row) Cate is even starting to eat chilli chips now. Perhaps we will all have a taste for hotter foods when we get back, but don't forget the biltong!

Ps my SIM card is working but no real speed for good connections, sorry madam.

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