Monday 18 October off to Jaipur

Up and out by 9am. A nice time of day to walk through the sreeets, gaze up the narrow alleyways, and admire the upper facades, this must be the time of day that water is turned on everyone seemes to be out cleaning, washing pots, filling troughs with hosepipes and the water flowing fast down the drains.




Walked to the vegetable market (Sabzi) typically Indian stalls selling just about everything and vibrant colour everywhere, we chatted, took even more photos and bought fruit before going to see Raniji ki Baori best known of the many stepwells here. It is big - set in a small park it has beautiful carving on the pillars and arches and is quite lovely or would be if it was cleaned up, it stinks, humans, monkeys, bats have all helped. Once inside you can only look down from a distance as it it fenced in, and there is not much light.



Unfortunately we only had time for this one as we are leaving at 11am. Stopped and bought a small painting from Yug, Johns artist friend then back to pay the bill and depart for Kota, the lovely family stood and waved us off. Really sorry to leave this picturesque old town there was so much more to see and do. Back along the higway for the train for Jaipur which arrived on time.

We arrived in Jaipur at about 4.30pm and immediately regretted not having asked to be met, we were hounded by taxi drivers and were charged an exorbitant amount as we later found out, the hotel was no distance - we could have taken a rickshaw, never mind! The Hotel Arya Niwas was quite large with terrace and lawns, our room on 4th floor was comfortable and everything looked good - don't know why I booked here as we prefer smaller guest houses but it will be nice to have comfort in this city.

We had our meal that evening at Moti Mahal De Luxe (found in Lonely Planet) the food and service were excellent as was the music played by a small group with their little boy dancing for us.