Tickled but not pink

We said goodbye to Jodhpur after an amazing lightning storm and a backgammon lesson (at last). Jaipur was a bit of a shock. What a revolting place. Maybe it was arriving at 5am, finding the hotel to be a bit depressing, or maybe it was the fact that its inhabitants treat Jaipur like a massive rubbish dump crossed with a urinal. There's rubbish everywhere, a stench of piss and rot, and traffic blaring in every direction. People live on those streets, too - little dusty children running in the traffic begging and families choking on the fumes. We hid on a rooftop restaurant for a few hours, where we bumped into some scousers we met in Jodhpur, then braved the outside world.

Actually, old Jaipur is very nice - the "pink city" (it's not pink) is a grid of quieter little roads where you can peer into tiny workshops where they make statues, jewellery and textiles. We even found a nice rooftop with a nice view to escape from the fuss.

On our second day we put ourselves in the hands of Raja and his rickshaw. He took us on a tour of all Jaipur's sights - the palace of the winds, a bizarre garden of giant sun dials and the amazing Gaitor cenotaphs. These beautiful carved marble domes are the best thing in Jaipur - there was noone around, just silence and shade. We ate samosas by the Lake Palace, looked around the Amber Fort from the outside then climbed up the simiam-strewn hill to the Monkey Temple to watch the sun set into the smog.

So we saw the nice bits, but were quite happy to leave Jaipur.