Jaipur

We caught a train second class from Jaisalmer to Jaipur. half an hour into the 12-14 hour ride a friendly man started giving out snacks to the whole booth. He was a bit drunk and was showing me the bottle of white rum he had hidden under his bag. Apparently he was trying to give it to me. He stood up next to the carridge door and was watching the countryside flying by for a while and then we saw him fall out. There was panic through the carriage for all of 5 minutes. Someone pulled the emergency stop chain and all the Indians piled out of the carriage to see the body. It was decided that the man had committed suicide and we found out after that he knew no one on the train. the train started up again about 2 minutes after it stopped. Not important and the body was left on the tracks. At the next station someone gave his belongings to the station master. The train was packed thick with Indians. The Isles were lined with sleeping men and the booths and the loft. We had a seat between us really and my arse was on fire. Sitting on those trains really takes it out of me after only about 6 hours. Every kind of Indian transport really sucks so it's not worth paying more for private services or AC or first class, not that we could afford it. The internet cafe i'm in has an automatic generator. Amazing. i'm in the dark typing.

Jaipur was hot and crowded and we had an awesome sweet lassi in a terracotta cup at a local fry shop. We stayed at a beautiful garden rooftop hotel called TONY'S and we met TONY the owner who was really odd and prolific and awesome. He had started the guest house only a year before and it was crazy packed with decorations and trees and cacti. I made him a card with a tree on it and he freaked out:) Jaipur was an impressive walled city with sprawling markets but overall it was just loud, crowded and dirty and we moved on after 2 days.

One really cool walla in Jaipur had an old box camera from the 1800s that was his grandfathers apparently and stood on the street taking 'old photos' of tourists. I'll put up a photo of our old photos.

We did see the Jaipur Jantar Mantar which was mind warping and impressive. Massive stone astrological dials and stair cases and tall poles wrapped with barbed wire that some magical how measure the altitude of heavenly bodies and track the zodiac all built in the 1700s. Crazy stuff.

There were many more things to see in Jaipur. We spied Tiger Fort up on the hill behind the old city and saw the out side of the amazing palace of the winds but we had to move on.