hannah

Spent a lovely day exploring the forts at Amber. So impressive with the most opulent interiors. We are going a bit crazy with the camera though - think we're up to 600 photos already!!
I am starting to get a feel for the life of the Maharajas. We even lounged on their chair in the 'Pleasure Palace' at the City Palace today. Surrounded by ruby and emerald encrusted walls, it was where the Maharaja would lay around with his various women. We also went to the room where he took his wives for candle lit dinners if they were cranky with him (couldn't imagine why...). This room is covered in convex mirrors and he would have 16 ladies holding candles to create a starry night effect. Quite stunning.
I think we are getting used to the sensory overload that is India. We don't notice the extreme over amplification of everything, the horns and the yelling as much any more. The urine smell still stings the nostrils though!

We arrived in Jaipur today after a long journey from ludhiana in the Punjab. Our dirver will be leaving us tommorrow - we had our first taste of having to buy train tickets today. Fun Fun. As Templer puts it - "its just hard". We've been so lucky to have the driver as we got a real taste of every day family life in India. We visited not only his reasonably wealthy relatives in Ludhiana, but also his determined widowed grandmother in a tiny village somewhere in the Punjab. She is over 90 and lives as you can imagine villagers have lived for hundreds of years. Her house was just like in all the books I've read - central courtyard, stone walls, fire oven...
In contrast, we are staying in another lovely hotel - must say we are not exactly roughing it!! Off to Amber Fort tomorrow.
Here are some photos.

That is one photo from Delhi. It only took 2 hours to upload. They're not quite up with digital cameras yet here!!
I am all better - was only a one night episode. We have had an amazing time at a Sikh festival called Holla Mohalla. There were hundreds of thousands of people and we were the only foreigners!! WE saw parades of horses, elephants and sikhs with GIANT turbans. We climbed onto someones roof to watch the displays of swordsmanship and horse tricks. It was fabulous. Will try and post some photos sometime soon, so you can get an idea of what was going on. Al and I are having a ball still. We are off to Rajhastan in the next few days.

India week 1

Testing...

Vomit and diarrhea, that's all I can say!

We are having a fantastic time so far in India. The people are really friendly, even though they often stare at us. We have had 2 days in Delhi which is an incredably crazy city. They are madly preparing for the commonwealth games which seems an impossible task given the pollution, rubish, poverty and crazy traffic.
The traffic is insane - people goign everywhere whenever they want and add to that a mix of sacred cows, dogs, small children and elephants. We had the most nail biting drive to Amritsar yesterday when I truly thought I would die at least twice, and I thought we would kill several pedestirans along the way.
We have hired a driver for ten days at a very small expense. He is a lovely man who looks like a black haired santa with a turban. He is a local of the Punjab region and will take us to meet his family in Ludhiana which we're really excited about.
At the moment we are in a town very close to the pakistan border, where there is a breathtaking golden temple (sikh). We got up before sunrise and sat next to the pool of water surrounding the temple. I felt very happy.
The food is AWESOME!! Curries for dinner and yummy stuffed bread things for brekky. I can't see myself getting sick of it.
I especially love the way things get done here. Nothing is too big a problem and if one person doesn't know, they'll ask their mate down the road who has a friend of a friend. Love it.

Off to India shortly.