The Two Sides of India: Part 2

We awoke the second morning hoping that our second day in India would be more enjoyable than the first... it was! After our ordeal the night before we didn't meet Rajan (our driver) until 1pm. We had woken up for breakfast earlier before we went back to bed, this consisted of toast, eggs and cornflakes, I opted for eggs but Rob went for the cornflakes with hot milk... the look on his face when the milk scolded his cornflakes was hilarious!

Our first stop in Jaipur was Amber Fort. It is a red sandstone fort, built in the 17th Century, by Raja Man Singh. It was a beautiful mix of the Inidan and Mogul heritage. We wondered around for a couple of hours, there were lots of stairwells and different rooms and corridors to explore, so we had a lot of fun discovering new places.

Gardens in front of Shesh Mahal (Hall of mirrors)

The Hall of Mirrors

The most impressive was the hall the mirrors and garden in front of it. There were lots more to see, including good views of the surrounding landscape and the city of Jaipur. After the day we had yesterday we were glad to be doing something enjoyable.

Next we went to the Jal Mahal (Water Palace), I wasn't too fussed about this, basically a bog standard "palace" in the middle of the lake, Rob raved about this, which is why I added this photo



Rob raving in front of the Water Palace


That evening we went back to the hotel and then went to the shops, here we got chatting to a couple of local Indian boys around our age. They invited us to see their friends' elephants down the road, not something you hear everyday. We were alittle wary considering the day before but they seemed genuine and they just wanted to practise their English. We were really sad to see these 6 elephants chained in a barn, the elephants were impressive but it was depressing to see them tied up. We chatted for a while and they invited us to a wedding along the road, we were intrigued and took them up on their offer.

We were a little cautious about gatecrashing the wedding, but everyone was very friendly and treated us like celebrities, they invited us to go up on stage on and get a picture taken with the bride and groom. They were the only people that were not so happy to see us, but wouldn't you be if some random foreigners came to your wedding! We even plucked up the courage to dance on the dancefloor to some Bhangra Beats. Rob claims to have been offered a part as a Bollywood extra due to his killer moves. His dancing was a sight to behold... not a good one!

Do they look like the moves of a Bollywood dancer?

This massively changed our perspective of India. This day was so much better than the first and we finally got to interact with some nice honest Inidan locals.

Today we woke up earlier and checked out of hotel and had a look around Jaipur city centre (the Pink City). We visited the City Palace, Jantar Mantar ( an amazing observatory built in the 10th Century) and Hawa Mahal (a wall basically). None of these sights were as impressive as the Amber Fort, but we still enjoyed it, the stand out part of the day was when we were walking around a local market with monkeys (Rob wanted me to mention the monkeys) and we were kindly offered some street food, we offered to pay but they wouldn't accept anything.

Amazing Street food

We are now in a hotel in Agra, we drove here from Jaipur in the heat of the day. To say I sweated in the back of the car would be an understatement. My trousers were literally drenched!! The last two days have definitely been enjoyable and restored our opinion of India. Hopefully the rest of our stay here is just as good!!