Amber Fort and old Jaipur

We woke up early, had breakfast of egg on Indian bread then waited outside for the rickshaw driver that had said last night that he will take us for a sight-seeing day to see the Amber Fort and another couple of places for 350 rupees. He was nowhere to be seen so we gave him 10 minutes before taking another rickshaw from across the road and asking him to take us to the train station as we wanted to buy tickets to Jaisalmer. All the way there he was pestering us about where we wanted to go after the station, did we want a tour? We said that we'd like to go to the centre of town and walk around but he wasn't happy with that, he got out a book of comments from other happy tour customers under the guise that he had a letter from a friend in England but couldn't read it so would Sam read it to him - it's a shame that we "DON'T WANT A TOUR". We bought train tickets then he took us to the city and left us to wander around under the impression that we would meet him at 4.30pm for a trip to the monkey temple, but based on his friend's track record (he was chatting this morning at the train station to the guy that should have picked us up this morning) we guessed that he wouldn't be there. We found a bus to Amber Fort without any difficulty and a man ushered us onto it (which luckily for us was almost full which means it will leave sometime soon). After 5 minutes we were on our way and for 6 rupees each! It seemed a lot closer that the 11km that it was said to be and we arrived after 15 minutes, much higher than Jaipur with the Jaigarh Fort even higher still. It was hot by the time we got there at lunchtime so we had a rest in the shade before tackling the mass of guides. After fending off a few it turned out that Sam would actually like a guide but when I said to go and chose one he said no- boys. The fort was massive and amber in colour with a beautiful painted gate leading out of the main square. There was a spectacular room inside decorated with mosaic mirrored tiles and stained glass windows. It must have been a magnificent sight when it was new and so expensive to construct. We wandered through the fort and up a track from the back of the fort up to Jaigarh Fort. It was scorching hot by this time and I was on the verge of overheating. It got even hotter on the climb up, we were plodding along when a pale-face came the other way saying "you're going well but there's nothing much at the top!" Thanks! Well we made it but I was REALLY hot by the time we got there so I sat for while whilst Sam explored the first little bit by himself before bringing me a cold drink- mmm. This fort wasn't as impressive as Amber fort as it hadn't been as well preserved but it did have the worlds largest wheeled cannon which was impressive. Once the heat of the day had subsided we walked back down to the road and with impeccable timing the bus pulled up as we left the gates without a single hassle from a rickshaw driver, 15 minutes later we were throw back into the hubub that is Jaipur. We waved down our first cycle-rickshaw to take us back to our hotel for a cool down. No sooner had we arrived back that I had a sudden thought, this is our only night in Jaipur and we wanted to go to the famous "Raj Mandir" cinema! I phoned to book seats but the man said "booking at window 6" so we sped off to the cinema hoping that if we hurried there might be seats left for the 9.30pm showing. We walked quickly and a funny cycle-rickshaw driver followed us for a while, he started at 20 rupees (not knowing where we wanted to go) then as he realised that we weren't interested he started to go up in price. He got all the way to 250 rupees before saying "good day", smiling and cycling off. We made it to the cinema and the "ladies only" queue only had 2 women in it so I queued. With the choice of Emerald or Diamond seats I chose Diamond for our first time ever in a "box" (hopefully not a cardboard one for the 2 pounds that it cost!). There was only time for a quick macdonalds before the show as it was next door before entering the pink meringue building to discover the brilliance that lay inside. Pale blue and pink decor with chandeliers and a spiral staircase, it was beautiful, clean and ornate. We took our seats in the balcony (not box) and watched the film. It was all in Hindi but we picked up a fair bit of it of it as it was a simple story and was still funny just to watch. We walked back to out hotel and straight into bed to watch the lizards on our wall, they were yellow and almost camouflaged on our walls.

On our last day in Jaipur we walked to the Peace Palace Hotel for breakfast in their rooftop restaurant, the food was good but the views weren't great. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the backstreets inside the city walls, the people there were all really friendly putting their hands together and saying "Namaste". We climbed the Heaven Piercing Minaret (Iswari Minar Swarga Sal) and ascended the spiral staircase which was actually a long curved ramp to see the views of the old pink city. The views were lovely, sandstone buildings and some newer buildings not made from sandstone but painted pink. The security guard at the top hassled us, wanting to point out buildings and take photos of us. He obviously wanted a 'tip' but I would rather have given him a tip to leave us alone! There were some new areas to the city and some crumbling old ones, I stood and watched the long-eared cows meandering along the road, not caring about the vehicular mayhem occurring around them. When we had taken in the view and were tired of the security man we headed down with the security man in tow as we'd offered him 10 rupees for the photos but he insisted on being paid at the bottom. The man who had 'innocently' asked us how we got here when we arrived turned out to be a rickshaw driver who now began pestering to take us for a tour, we walked away and he eventually left us alone. We ventured into the back streets again and bought a shirt for Sam after the man in the shop had got almost all of them out of the boxes, he still cheated us by saying that it was the same size as one that Sam had tried when instead it was much bigger- never trust an Indian selling you something!! In the afternoon we looked around the Hawa Mahal, a five-storey "palace" but most of which was a courtyard. The front face is made from sandstone lattice so that ladies could watch the people in the street without the people seeing them. We rested in an internet cafe before going to the hotel, collecting our bags and taking a rickshaw to the train station where we queued and reserved tickets for the next section of our journey from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur. There was cricket on the TV in the waiting room so we watched the game whilst making a new friend, a guy who had come to the station just to watch the cricket as he's in Jaipur for an interview. Our train was only 10 minutes late so at 00.01 we were in our beds, bags locked to the metal loop beneath the bed and off to sleep once the ticket guy had came and sat in our compartment for ages with the light on and talking on the phone- grrr.