Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan

Once again we didnt hear the alarm, which normally wouldnt been a problem except this time we were on a train. Luckily the train inspector realised this and woke us up just as the train was about to leave the station we should have got off at.

So at 2:15 AM and still half asleep from our 13 hour train journey we found ourselves on Jaipur station and having to get a rickshaw to the hostal we booked a few hours before.

After a few more hours of sleep we headed out into Jaipur. First going to a temple overlooking the city which was invaded by wild monkeys and then heading into the old city, often known as the pink city due to the colour of its walls after the Maharaja Ram Singh had the entire city painted pink -a colour associated with hospitality- to welcome the Price of Wales (later King Edward VII) and the tradition has been maintained. To us however, the walls seemed strangely orange!.

The Mahajaras were essentialy princely rulers in the state of Rajasthan, who were well known for their extraordinary palaces, incredible wealth and the life style they had including numerous wives and expensive hobbies. During British India they lost a lot of the power but maintained their lavish (exuberantes) way of living.

Jaipur is a city with an incredible amount of activity: muslims and hindus selling just about everything in little side streets, while camel carts, cars, cows, pigs, motorbikes and death-defying pedestrians (peatones jugandose la vida cada vez que intentaban cruzar una calle) all fight for space on the roads.

This city is a lot cleaner than most of the places we have visited so far, and there seems to be more money here: newer cars, more mobile phones and shopping centres.

In the evening we met up with some friends of friends in Madrid who live and run a travel agency here and had a fantastic local curry.