Hi All,
I know it has been a while since we spoke last, we have been
out in the back and beyond and had no internet.
So sorry for the lack of blogs over the last couple of days.
Since we talked we took the chicken bus (which thankfully had
no chickens or livestock) from Agra to Jaipur.
The bus trip was fine except for one of the locals who was sitting
across the aisle from us and listened to music on his phone without earphones
and sang along to it. Thankfully he
didn’t do this the whole trip but did for a significant portion. We are now down with Indian Pop music!
We arrived into Jaipur just after lunch and got settled into
our hotel. The hotel was an old palace
which had been converted to a hotel so there was no order as to where the room
numbers went and you had to take various flights of stairs up, then down, then
up etc etc. We finally arrived at our
room (which was on the roof) and found that there was no fly screens on the
window in the bathroom or above the door to the room which allowed copious
amounts of mozzies to enter the room. I think we ended up with “Rid” more in our
mouths than on our skin and the mozzie bite count between us after our two
nights there is in the tens at least.
Once settled we went for a walk with the group to get our
bearings of the city, had a late lunch and off to the markets for some
shopping. After shopping we returned to the hotel to head out for dinner with
the group. For dinner we went to the
hotel that is used for a scene in the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
It is the hotel used in the scene where the lady is at the bar trying to pick
up wealthy Indian men. We had dinner on the lawn outside with some
entertainment of dancing, music and some fire breathing! Toot got up on stage
with a few of the others and had a little boogie and her 15 mins of fame (I
think that she was secretly hoping there was a Bollywood talent scout in the
crowd). Once dinner was over it was time for a tuk tuk back to the hotel and a
little party on the roof. Drinks were
flowing, music was playing and we had a view of the city from the roof. It was a nice evening weather wise but we had
an early morning the next morning so we crashed at about 11:30pm. By the sounds of the music still going and
people still talking we think the roof party eventually died at about 4:30am.
The next morning we headed off to the Amber Fort. The fort palace of Amber was the Kachawaha
citadel until 1727, when their capital moved to Jaipur. Successive rulers
continued to come here on important occasions to seek the blessings of the
family deity, Shila Devi. After the fort
we headed off to look at a textile and a silver shops. No purchases were made for which the credit
cards are happy. After this it was time
for more market browsing and then off to the supermarket for some snacks. Once the all important snack shopping was
taken care of it was time for a Bollywood flick at the local cinema. The new “blockbuster” has just hit town and I
believe we were lucky to get seats. It was call “Jab Tak Hai Jaan” We saw
the movie at the Raj Mandir Cinema this was Director Yash Chopra who was one of
the most famous directors in India. He unfortunately
died of Dengue Fever late last month just after announcing his retirement of
film directing.
It’s not quite what we expected with most of the older more
traditional Bollywood movies having no kissing or anything of the kind. This movie however had many kisses and a bed
scene, most unexpected. No subtitles, all in Hindi with a random English word
thrown in here and there for good measure.
The actual viewing of the movie is quite hilarious. When the movie starts everyone on the cinema
goes nuts, there is wolf whistling, cheering and clapping for the first few
minutes. Throughout the movie people are cheering, getting up and down from
their seats and we were also lucky enough to see a small brawl break out in the
crowd and a few get evicted. There is an
intermission half way through as the movie goes for 3 hours (a fairly standard
length for Bollywood by the sounds of it).
Loved the movie, Toot thinks it needed more singing and dancing, she is
now hanging out to get home and download a few for herself. Any recommendations gratefully received.
This morning was time to leave Jaipur on our own buses and
travel the crappy road to Tordi Garh.
The bus ride was 4 hours of one lane “highway” (with pot holes big
enough to just about lose the bus down), rolled over trucks on the side of the
road and plenty of livestock just chilling. When we finally arrived in Tordi Garh
we were pleased with our hotel (an old converted 17th century
palace). Once settled it was time for a walk around the village which consists
of 2500 people. The family that own and run the palace also run the local
school. They also do a lot for the local
community by providing jobs, organising people from the village to come in and
do henna, sell sarees and take the tourist on a camel cart ride to the nearby
sand dunes to watch the sunset. Upon returning from the camel cart ride it was
time for dinner and fireworks (a little too close for comfort, but fun
nonetheless) and then time for bed. You know you’re getting old when the party
is cranking (rather loudly) just outside the door and pj’s and bed is more
enticing.
Wherever our room seems to be, there is always a loud even
just next door. We had Diwali
celebrations outside the window in Delhi, a performance on the lawn with
fireworks in Varanasi, the disco in our hotel in Agra was 2 doors down, rooftop
party in Jaipur and loud music and drinking just outside here in Tordi Garh.
On the road again from Tordi and this time it is off to
another village for one night. On
arrival we were greeted on the lawn outside the hotel by some local ladies
singing a welcome song. We settled into our rooms and headed to lunch. Some very tasty local food was had and a
massage organised for later in the afternoon.
After lunch we had a free afternoon to read in the sun with some
relatively fresh air around us. After
some reading we had a massage in our room by some of the local ladies. We had coconut oil rubbed all over us and all
through our hair. This was all great
until it was time to have a shower after and there was no hot water, eww cold
shower and oily hair. Once “showered” we
headed to some rooftop drinks before dinner and they had a fire going (I
believe to keep the mozzies at bay) so no everything smells like smoke. We headed to dinner after drinks and then
headed to bed, both knackered again. At
least by this time we had managed to get the hot water issue sorted out for the
morning.
Think that catches us up for now. We will post again tonight telling you about
what we get up to this afternoon.
Love to all, ciao for now
Toot and Gordo Xx.
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