Pink, it's my new obsession

So we ended up staying in Jaïpur a little longer than anticipated. Man came down with a bad case of something we hope isn't malaria, and we had to cancel (or rather, not show up and lose all our money due to indianrail's SHITTY customer-service) our tickets to Udaipur. We also had to move out of the hostel we loved since we hadn't pre-booked and the owners were decent enough people to honour the bookings they allready had in. So after a few days of moping around alone I noticed that the middle east and India had more in common than great food and weather, as more and more young men from all castes and classes decided to show me that men will be pervs whereever you go. One was even gracious enough to speed-cycle after my cycle-rickshaw while offering to 'pit his taunge' 'in mi vigine'. Which resulted in my short fuse to blow off in a marketplace where it's probably not concidered very ladylike to flip someone off while screaming like a maniac.

So, after 2-3 nights in a dirty little place with a squat-toilet and annoying neighbours, we took in to a nicer hotel for a night before getting on a plane to Goa yesterday. So far this place is highly overrated, concidering we're not druggies. Man is still not feeling too great, and we're being offered drugs whereever we go, aswell as the general hassle to buy stuff. My pale-ness is also a subject often inviting to questions, since we haven't really seen the sun 'till now. Too much techno/trance/hippies/drugs makes mee feel like an old hag, when I would really just like a nice and more 'family-friendly' place. We have to get on the road again tomorrow, since our hostel doesn't have any openings, but we haven't decided if we're leaving for Hampi or trying to find another lpace around goa we like better. We're catching the wednessday flea-market before we go anywhere though, that's all we know.

Oh, and we've also accidently stopped smoking and drinking, even the man. Don't know what happened, but it's probably good for us. Let's see how long it lasts.

Everywhere I go I want to travel by rickshaw.

For the first time in my life I've been furious at beggers. I usually leave them a coin or two or a little something to eat, but here, I've decided to let go of that practice. I've ended up on more than one occation, after giving something to a child or their parent, being chased by hords of their friends/family/other children, who will not take no for and answer and swear at you or tug at you if they don't feel you gave them enough. Apart from that, I think I've found paradise.

We're in Jaïpur, the so called pink city, which in my opinion isn't very pink, but still well worth a visit. There is a kite-festival going on, and children as well as adults, poor as well as the rich are out in the streets or on their roof-tops flying kites. We've found an oasis of a hostel, with the most amazing hosts which have turned around some of the ails we've encountered travelling in India. (If you're reading this and looking for accomondation in Jaïpur, check out the Travellers Nest!) they have't tried to sell us any thing, they give honest and good advice when we ask for help, they are both very interresting and interrested(!) people with whome we've allready had a few really nice conversations. Our room is beautiful, simple and clean, and we have hot water whenever we want it. They well deserve their top-rating in hostel-world.

We've also seen the mandatory Taj Mahal and baby-Taj in Agra, and that's about all the good things i can say about that city. I thought I was well over being tricked by people who are just trying to sell you things and benefit from you somehow, but they really are everywhere here (apart from this hostel, yay!). The driver who took us to the not-so-great-but-still-ok hotel in Agra from the train-station showed up at our hotel the next day after a firm "we'll call you if we need you" to show us around. Buying services from people who are constntly trying to make plans for you can be really exhausting, and we'd had it up to here when we went on to Jaïpur. We got a taxi/driver all the way, which was quite expensive, but still well worth the money for us, since the road between Agra and Jaïpur turned out to be magnificent in itself and we had te oportunity to stop and take pictures. it also helped that he didn't speak much english and thus couldn't talk us in to weird shopping-deals or the sort. He did make one stop we didn't request though, at a place that wouldn't let us invite him as our guest at our table since "the drivers had to eat in another room", something we also encountered in Agra. Just an example showing that the cast-system is alive and well.

But back in Jaïpur the only problems we've encountered to speak of is tummyache due to gluttony. We originally booked in for one night, but decided to stay for 3. We've been hiking in the mountainside up to this fort where the king used to live while hunting tigers (there extinct in the region now), seing wild monkeys up close aswell as many other pretty wild animals.

We've decided on not going north at all, and perhaps leave Rajasthan all together after this and head south. If all goies as losely planned, we'll be catching a train to Mumbai, with a stopover in Udaipur for one day, then go onwards from Mumbai to the south Goa-area and Hampi, and if we can miraculously find the time, look around further south for animal reserves and tea-plantations. We just don't have enough time to see half of what we wanted, espessially if we're going to continue spending 3 days on each place. But hey, it's vacation after all, innit?

Got to love the sweet taste of India

I'm writing to you from Delhi, India for the very first time. I haven't been travelling since my trip to Turkey this summer, to a beautiful small resort just outside of Olympus called Cirali. Endless beaches, fantastic fauna with hedgehogs and sea-turtles, and a magnificent bungalow on my mans bosses bill. Couldn't have asked for more.

So India. This will be interresting. As it turns out, the hostel we pre-booked seems to be someones permanent home with two-ish spare rooms, and the water here is only sporadic, which is probably an indian thing, but we still haven't had the chanse for a proper shower 24 hrs after arrival, and since we spent a day in Copenhagen on our way here, it's staring to get icky. Not to mention the fact that they didn't clean out our bathroom after the previous detendents. Really, they left soap-bars and toothpaste aswell as general dirt. This will be fun when our travel-stomachs kick in and we can't flush.

This place is really weird, I can't tell who lives here and not. The owner (?) was 40 minutes late for our pick-up, and when we finally arrived in what surprisingly turned out to be a living-room, he didn't intorduce the PJ-wearing woman as his wife, we were just left to assume she was. they offered us coffee from some cracked cups served by a scared-looking young girl who may have been their daughter or maid, then left the room. There is an old man roaming around and we're not sure he lives here. My man thinks he might be a german warlord who escaped after the holacaust and is now here in hiding. To me, he loks rather native, but we canhear him cough in the livingroom as if he was right here in the bedroom with us.

We're only planning on staying one more night. I'm running to have a shower now, because the toilet just flushed, which means I have to work fast.