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Hello! After our night in Agra, Ellie and I embarked on our 6 hours coach ride to Jaipur where we will stay for two nights. Jaipur is known as the Pink City because the Old Jaipur buildings are painted an orangey-pink: a decoration dating back to the late 19th Century, in order to welcome Edward, Prince of Wales to the city. The only thing with this tour is you don't get to stay very long in one place, so we don't get to explore these places much. However after our bus journey (theme tuned by constant loud beeping from our coach driver that put everyone in a bit of a bad mood and gave us a thumping headache) we did arrive at our hotel - The Jaipur Inn - which was lovely. It's a family run business and the grounds and bedrooms are gorgeous with a real traditional English feel to them so it was very homely and comfortable.
After arriving we settled in, relaxed, and then went for an orientation walk around 4pm. It was a walk much like the one we had done in Old Delhi where we were all taken around the spice market, and to a roof top which gave us a good view of the bustling city. After a lovely dinner, around 6 of us played on the ping pong table they had at the hotel which was really fun! Obviously Ellie and I won and definitely didn't come last out of everyone.
The second day in Jaipur was good fun, we had a few options with what we could do during the day. Ellie and I decided that a lie in was first on our list, so after waking up at our own time (luuuuush) we went to the nearest chemist to get some essentials. We tried to use the computer to upload the photos but internet is hit and miss wherever you go here. If its not the connection that slows it all down it's the regular power cuts. After all this, we sat on the hotel roof top and the heat was BAKING! It was lovely. We relaxed with two Irish girls - Joanne and Anna, listened to music, played some cards then at around 3pm we headed to the MONKEY PALACE!!! EEKK!! It. Was. Awesome.
The auto-rickshaw took us to the bottom of the hill, where the Monkey Palace lasy the other side of. So after dodging the dogs, wild boar, cows, goats and the odd monkey, we made our way up the hill, to the top and back down again. It was quite steep and a couple of us lost our footing but no one fell. The view at the top of the hill and then what lay at the foot of the hill was definitely worth it!!
I bought a bag of monkey nuts to feed to the monkeys for 10 Rs, and less than 4 minutes later the whole bag was ripped from my hands by a cocky little fur-bag. The tour guide was less than impressed - I think it's happened too many times to the unprepared traveler to be funny. I laughed anyway.
So the Monkey Palace, also known as Galtaji, is known so for the massive tribe of monkeys (rhesus macaque) who live there. The palace has several Hindi temples around, and people as well as the monkeys and the odd cow lives there. The locals aren't as much of a fan of the monkeys as we were. So we fed some of the monkeys from our hand, and took some pictures, and then the monkey caretaker walked past and invited us to come with him and he would call all the monkeys over. Then we were playing with the monkeys with his guidance (we first thought they'd attack us if we got too close but they were so cute and friendly!). We were hiding the nuts in our hands and the monkeys were trying to open our hands with their own hands, then we were feeding the nuts straight to their mouth, and I got one monkey to jump on my bent knee, and the monkey caretaker led the monkey on to my shoulder! It was SO COOL!!!
We then made our way back up the hill, then down the hill to the auto-rickshaws for another death-defying trip to a nearby restaurant where we waited for the rest of the group to join us for the Bollywood film. We watched 'Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster' or - The Wife and The Gangster. It was around three hours long with no subtitles and 99% Hindi. We had had a summary of the story from our guide so it wasn't too bad but I don't think I could say that the dancing and singing made up for the fact that we didn't have a clue what was going on (unless someone said "cheers!" or "How are you?"), because they only did two numbers the whole time! It was interesting to see how Indian people reacted to things though. Like whenever the crowd laughed, they clapped too. And they went WILD when there was a kiss! Also people just chatted over the film! Two people's mobiles went off, and they just sat there, on the phone, talking at normal volume. Good job I wasn't trying to listen. The cinema was extravagant and the women were beautiful. India loves its Bollywood that's for sure! After the film I asked the tour guide about the plot. One character had seen her boyfriend sleeping with another woman, so had married another man, and then on finding out that the girlfriend had married someone else, the boyfriend had killed himself and she had turned to alcohol and 'gone mad'. It all seemed a bit odd. The tour guide said that Indian people would have seen the girlfriend as the 'baddy' and felt sorry for the boyfriend. I said that the boyfriend had cheated. She explained that in the film they showed that the boyfriend was seduced by the other woman, so it would not have been seen as his fault, as it is only natural for men to give in to this. She said she knew this would be different to western style films, and it was just a different way of thinking. She explained that it is generally accepted that men cheat often in India. I thought this was all very interesting… The next morning I did a Yoga class on the hotel roof top which was lovely J the teacher was very good. Then we headed off to Tordi Garh - a small traditional village 3 hours south of Jaipur which Ellie can tell you about. And our tan is coming along nicely thank you very much J Love to all xxxx- comments