Day 5 and 6: Blue City to Octopussy. Jodipur and Udaipur

Day 5

I awake after a really, really good night sleep and after a quick breakfast, avoiding the fruit, we get packed up and leaving the wonderful Jaipur. I'm sad to say goodbye to this city with its lovely people and beautiful views but I know my enjoyment means I'll be back and it means I've finally found my love for all this travel business. We are making our way to Jodipur, the next city on our whirlwind tour and it's another long drive.

Today is the first time we get bored in the car, which is good going seeing as we've already travelled some pretty long drives. We found some pretty good car games to play and thought we would share them so have a look at this blog for them and please comment and add some more.

Harpel's driving today has been amazing today. My personal favourite is over taking 4 lorries on a blind corner all because he had to be single lane for 5 miles. I managed to do the ever so embarrassing singling out loud today with my heads phones on, team quite nicely apparantly with some dance moves, luckily it wasn't Dolly as I don't think Harpel would still be driving us after my rendition of 9-5.

To break up the long drive, we stopped off at a beautiful temple that had recently we built to replace an older one on the hill behind it. Its run up is a 2 sided wide pathway with beautiful flowers growing in the centre which goes up to a stunning white marble temple. The place was completely deserted apart from a few gardener when we first arrived and it was so peaceful. Every part of our trip so far has been full of noise and people and it was just bliss to be sitting in the warm sun, in a beautiful surrounding just taking stock of everything we've been up to so far. Our solitude couldn't last forever and it wasn't too long before we were the focus of people's cameras again, so after a few poses we left.

We arrived into Jodipur, apatly named the Blue city after all it's blue buildings, at about 3pm to be reminded of the chaos of Delhi. It is an old city with tall buildings and narrow roads which don't cope well with the high level of traffic that's there. The only thing on a our programme today (what Harpel calls our plans) is to visit the fort (see a common theme here) and for the first time we didn't have a guide and it was heaven. Yes we might not have understood all the signs and didn't learn the history of each doorway but it gave us the freedom to explore for ourselves and if we really wanted to know all that we could have got a free audio guide (which we declined).

 We wandered around the very beautiful building taking in all its magnificent architecture and its stunning views out of the windows and the battlements. Not having a guide did mean we had alot of people asking us for photos which was a bit annoying but I finally got a picture for my nephews of how many of the Indian ladies dress so it wasn't all bad. I also had a lot of women coming up to shake my hand as they liked my hair colour so much. Harpel has explained that a lot of people are interested in the colour as it isn't something they can get out of the henna they use and people are a bit intrigued by it. 

We finished at the fort and made our way back to the car to watch the sun set and attract the stray dogs with Ben's Dr Dolittle ways. We then made out way through the city to get to our hotel and oh my kittens Delhi crazy doesn't even cover it, the roads are so narrow and they are determined to squeeze so many cars in and everyone believes it's always their right of way. We drive through a bustling street market and it's insane with cars, people, bikes and cows all jostling for space. Also because the roads are so narrow and busy it's impossible to remember which way you have come, I pride myself on my sense of direction but I was completely lost in all the crowds.

But we finally turn up at our hotel and it's actually really nice, quite basic with large clunky furniture but it's what I imagined, before we left, of what Indian hotels would be like and the room had good wi-fi!! Which has quickly become one of the must have if places are going to get a good rating from us. Because of the connection, I decided to FaceTime home and speak to my sister and mum which was really lovely though I'm not sure if a bit upsetting for my mum, like I've said before calling home for me grounds me and cements all that I'm doing as being real and not some fantasy I've dreamt up but I know sometimes it's just easier to not have the contact as then you aren't reminded and the times goes quicker.

We wash and re dress and get taken out to dinner in the posher part of Jodipur. This part of town has one of the most expensive hotels I've ever heard of and probably in India (put in hotel facts) The restaurant we go to Rocktails is very close and you can tell that from the more exciting dishes and westernisation of the food. It has a really cool interior though, where it's made to look like caves and a jungle and the food was out of this world. I went for pasta as I just needed a change from curry but Ben had a delicious pineapple panner that I had proper food envy over. They let themselves down though with the tea afterwards though, offering up Tetley's bagged as their green tea option, now I'm sure their are many of you out there that love a bit of Tetley's but I'm a Clippers girl and was also really disappointed it wasn't fresh, us being in the tea capital of the world.

We waddled back to the hotel, full to the brim and fell straight asleep, only waking for the epic cat battle that happened on our roof. 

Day 6

Today was the first morning I've actually fancied breakfast, normally they offer very sweet toast and strawberry jam or egg and both turn my stomach but today, ah it was delicious. I had a pile of spiced potatoes, rice and a scoop of slightly spicey baked beans, very carby but a perfect breakfast.

The last few days have both been a bit crazy for us both and it's showing today, we are both tired and just mull over the scenery as we drive out of the blue city. I have completely underestimated how much music can change my mood and loving listening to my strange cheese pop playlists as we drive through. Our first stop of the day was at a beautiful mountain temple, which is where we had a first viewing of wild monkeys who sit in car parks and eat your lunch. We didn't go in the temple this time but we didn't need too it was so relaxing just sitting outside in the sun, taking snaps. We wandered around and got some good monkey shots before working out we had wasted enough time that our driver would be believe we have been inside (he's quite religious and I think we wants us to be enlightened too) 

We are on our way to Udaipur and the route is taking us through some beautiful mountains, which is full of little monkey checkpoints (we don't have to stop but they make sure we have our papers) Harpel excelled himself with his driving again, this time overtakes on tight, blind mountain corners with only a horn for protection.

We thankfully reach Udaipur in once piece and I think we might have reached a nice spacious city. Oh no no no. Harpel was surprised as the last time he came the main road was dust and now all snazzy and tarmacked. Progress :) as we drive further into the city, the roads do there usual Indian thing and get smaller and smaller and even tighter and this time with buildings even higher, there can't be one lower that 4 storeys. The roads are also filled with their usual array on animals, vehicles, stalls and people and we witness a few gridlock traffic jams on Udaipur's tiny roads in the two days we are here.

And my, the noise! It's got to be the noisiest place I have ever been. The room is basic but clean and actually in a great location to go and see the city sights which we do once we've dropped our bags. This is the first time we've been out due to my timidness with the busy outside and I am overwhelmed again, and my brain harks back to arriving for the first time in Delhi. I freak out and get nudged by a Tuk Tuk and all I want to do it hide. But Ben perseveres on and drags me to a cafe over looking the road so I can get used to the hustle in my own time. This was obviously a touristy place to eat and we were seated next to the poshest three some I have ever heard who were complaining about the council tax rates in London. We stay for about an hour but I still couldn't get my head around all the madness so we came back to the hotel and had a epic card battle. These are seriously one of the best things we packed, there are so many games to play and it can pass an airport wait in no time.

Our driver had recommended us to eat in the roof top restaurant of our hotel, I have no idea why as they didn't seem at all prepared for guests and the oldest waiter up there was about 15! The food was also underwelming and the only thing that made up for it was the fact they put Octopussy on for us. We found out afterwards that nearly every guest house in Udiapur plays it daily as it was filmed here, so you really can't escape it. Just another quirk of India I guess.