The Pink City - Jaipur

Today we woke up very very worried. As I mentioned we decided to get a driver for our two week trip around Rajasthan. Although we have overall got a really good deal (£30 a day) it's begun to dawn on us how expensive this is when you begin including all the royal sights. We try and keep our budget to £30 a day total for the 2 of us including everything, but now it's becoming more like £75 including accomodation and sights! Although it's been a really great day sight seeing, we've not felt present at all. Our minds have just been drifting and getting worried about money. We then made it worse by looking at the cost of trains etc if we had done it ourselves and it would have been around £100 total for 2 weeks for transport... anyway that's probably very boring information for you so I'll move on to the sight seeing.

Today we had a tour guide to take us around Jaipur. First we went to the Amber Fort which was very grand sat on the mountainside. So many people took a ride on an elephant to get to the top and honestly I just felt so bad for the poor creatures. On average each elephant does 5 journeys to the top and when we were walking back down the elephants looked so exhausted and were barely walking. We were told that the female elephants were beaten from a very young age to become docile and are trained to be transport. It's so sad to see tourists thinking this is OK. The fort was built in the 17th Century and to be honest it seemed the King had rather friendly neighbours and so there weren't any major battles during its time, so it was just used as the home of the King.

We then visited the Water Palace, a Palace in the middle of a lake, which used to be the summer holiday home for the king. Its currently not in use and the government are thinking of privatising it so that it can be restored and looked after again.

The next stop was completely pointless and to be honest made me a bit angry. Our tour guide took us to "textile factory". Let's be honest this is the most obvious scam, they show you how to print the pattern and then all they care about is making you buy stuff. We initially went along and saw him print a really awful elephant painting onto some cloth and then he took us to his shop, but I warned him I will not be buying anything. He sat us down, offered us tea etc and I told him I don't wish to waste his time and we will not be buying anything again. He just went on and on and I said we are leaving. I was really unhappy and told the guide I don't have money and if he does this again we will leave. Ajay, our driver, saw that I was upset and he shouted at our tour guide. Ajay is just super sweet and has been really understanding of our little money the whole way.

Next stop was the City Palace which wasn't anything special and to be honest by this point it was 11:30am and I was beginning to flag. In the Palace were the two largest silver Jars in the world and boy they were big, 345 kg without water and would hold 4000 liters each! The King at the time filled these Jars with water from the ganges and took them all the way to England as he would only drink water from the Ganges. By this point I couldn't concentrate and I was feeling very weak. We both hadn't slept with worry of finances, we were both very dehydrated and we hadn't eaten any breakfast. Just overall we were not looking after ourselves.

Next was the Observatory. To be honest this was quite the hidden gem. It wasn't listed in any of the blogs I read and it was fantastic! It hosts the largest sun dial in the world and it is very impressive! It also had various other astrological instruments including a zodiac reader. I would definitely recommend going to the observatory instead of the Palace.

Our final stop was Hawa Mahal, Wind Palace. We didn't go in as its empty inside and the impressive structure on the outside is actually the thing to see.

We then walked back to the car and got dropped off for a late lunch and agreed to meet Ajay at 4:30pm to go to the Monkey Temple for sunset.

I must admit for the next couple of hours I just felt upset and broken. I was upset that we had been persuaded to get the driver for the two weeks instead of making our own journey. Its nothing against Ajay, he's been perfect and the journey has been top class, but it's the overall cost for us. If we were here on a holiday then obviously it's great value for money but when it is our full budget per day then it's just worrying. We spent the afternoon sat in a cafe with a view of the Wind Palace and discussing whether we should cancel the trip. The likely hood of being able to cancel was basically nil but we ummed and ahhed our time away. Before meeting Ajay we decided to go for a short wander down the back streets of Jaipur. It was soooo busy. Narrow lanes filled with hundreds of shoppers and motorbikes fighting there way through. CARNAGE! The walk helped us cool down and realise we can still enjoy and do our own things even with a driver, but I think we might go through ups and downs in this journey...

In the evening we watched sunset at the Sun Temple and then went to the Monkey Temple. Both insisted on us doing Puja, welcome ceremony, which basically just meant they wanted money. We gave them a small amount and they were clearly annoyed but it's all we genuinely had with us. I hate when a donation is not seen as a donation and has to be a minimum amount. Temples and places of worship should be open for everyone without the unnecessary greed.

For dinner we had mutter paneer and chapatti and for 2nd dinner Will bought an I versed omelette sandwich. Instead of the bread on the outside it was cooked in the middle of the omelette! Yum!

In the evening we decided we enjoyed being with Ajay and that we would stick with it. The rest of the evening was spent chilling and planning for Pushkar.Read more