What a day. Traffic chaos, unplanned stops and a crappy hotel.

Everything started well enough as we woke up, showered and left our nice little guest house in Jaipur. We’d met some nice people there, enjoyed the facilites and the food was great. As ever, our driver was prompt (early, in fact) and we loaded up for the switch to Agra.

We’d decided earlier on that we had to be somewhere “special” for xmas. Why, neither of us can really explain as we couldn’t care less about the date. I guess just to make some of you lot jealous. Regardless, Agra and the Taj Mahal it was to be.

Off we went.

As ever, our driver was a clever mixture of insane, daring, thrilling, careful and relaxed. I don’t know how he does it. After four hours, we came to a grinding halt around 35km from Agra. Traffic was log-jammed and some pedestrians were trying their best to be helpful and shift people around.

Taking a diversion, we followed some other traffic and ended up at another set of palaces with locals trying to convince us to give them 100Rp to be our guide. Only 50Rp each, in case we couldn’t do the maths.

The thing is, we had no idea where we were and – frankly – had no desire to see yet another flipping fort, palace, temple, mosque or whatever. One enterprising lad kept pace with us as we walked across the car park to stretch our legs.

“I am not a guide. I am a student. I will take you around the mosque. Only 20 rupees. 10 rupees each. You have to remove shoes and socks. Bare feet only. Much beautiful work inside. Lovely mosque. You not want guide? OK. You give me 10 rupees?”

Erm. No. And not to the other guy who asked as well.

Quarter of an hour later, limbered up and adept at ignoring cries of “you need guide?” we returned to the car and zoomed downhill. Back into the same traffic jam.

Eventually it cleared, partly due to some great maneuvering on behalf of our gifted pilot. Another hour or so later and Agra came into sight – only about 2 1/2 hours later than we’d anticipated.

Then came the fun bit – locating the hotel we’d been pre-booked by the travel agent. Eventually, a guy from a marble shop helped us. It turns out the “street name” we had was actually an area name. He guided us there, we thanked him and promised to visit his marble shop (yeah, right) and checked in.

What a pit. OK, we’ve stayed in worse, but this is costing us 1500Rp a night each. We were staying in much nicer elsewhere for 450Rp between us. Yeah, we’re close to the Taj Mahal, though you can’t see it from the hotel, but as we’ve got a driver to take us there that’s hardly a concern.

We’re here for two nights and to be honest I hope the time goes quickly so we can get back to Delhi and on a plane to Mumbai. Up till now, India has at the very least been cheap. This is a lot to pay for somewhere this cruddy, and – in honesty – I’m in a pretty poor mood as well. Not helped by the constant stream of party-fied carols belting through the wall at 140dB from the hotel next door. Then the fireworks until 11pm. And the hammering that sounds like building work or decorating that starts at around 6am.

I’m not an xmassy person, but at least in the past I’ve been at home with my cats and stuff. This year, I’m somewhere that’s supposed to be amazing. I’m finding the country as a whole a little unimpressive and for other reasons I had been looking forward to Christmas this year a whole hell of a lot until a few months ago. Between those reasons and things turning out to be a bit crappier than even I’d expected, I’m already ranking this as probably my worst xmas ever.

So there you go. It’s not even the 25th, I’m in a hotel near one of the most wondrous pieces of architecture ever built and I’ve already written the whole thing off. Aren’t you glad it’s Hans who’s stuck with me and not you?

The one bright point in our day was watching a traffic accident on the way back to the hotel from checking out the internet later in the evening. A car overtook a motorbike and winged it. No injuries and the bike stayed upright, but the fight it caused drew quite an impressive crowd. There really is nothing to do round here in an evening.

After a nice brekkie of scrambled egg on toast and a fresh fruit salad, our driver picked us up at 10am and took us first to the City Palace. Another huge building in the usual grand style with some beautifully decorated doors. It wasn’t too expensive, either, at 180Rs including the camera fee.

There wasn’t a whole lot to see, but it was a nice wander and my Newcastle shirt got the attention of another young lady who we got talking to for a while. Her and her friend had been doing volunteer work down south and taken a break for the festive season. Fingers crossed we might see them in Goa as they’re due there the same time we are.

Within the palace are a couple of galleries, one of weapons and one of old artworks and documents. I wish I understood Hindi as the old books were dates as early as the 1700’s and I’m curious to see how their language at that age compares to English texts of the same age. The books are astoundingly well preserved with barely a hint of browning at the page edges. OK, I’m a book geek.

Back into the car, we were driven the 12 or so kilometres to the fort-place of Amber. Again, cheap to get in and stuffed to the gills with tourists (and people trying to sell us teeny carved elephants). Despite a nice garden inside, and the sheer size of it, we were somewhat unimpressed. Most of the building is very plain with little decoration or furniture. It takes a while to wander round and the view into the valley is nice and all, but there’s really not a lot there. Of course, we didn’t take a tour guide which may have made all the difference. One of them told us it was “complicated” without a guide. Yes. Well.

Our next stop was a shop which apparently belongs to a friend of our driver. Once upon a time, he did the same job ferrying oiks like us around. Now he’s settled down and sells textiles to oiks like us. Out of politeness, we wandered in, looked around and wandered out again.

Finally, lunch. McD’s. Hans had some kind of tikka veggie burger, I had a chicken burger and a veggie pizza puff pastry thing, which was kind of nice. After we’d filled ourselves, we walked back out in the the hordes of people asking for food and ignored them. Did I feel bad about this? No. Not really. I feel bad about the fact I didn’t feel bad. I guess I’ve just got jaded to it all. You can only have so many children and mothers miming “food” at you before it’s just so commonplace you can’t help but ignore it, like the traffic or the cows in the road.

After we got back to the hotel, we cut our driver loose for the day. This afternoon is one for chilling out and reading. Hans is buried in a Matthew Reilly book, I’m ploughing through another Lee Child novel.

Tomorrow we leave Rajisthan and enter Uttar Pradesh and Agra – home of the Taj Mahal.

After a relaxing night listening to random MP3s and deciding on concrete details for our tour itinerary, we crashed out. My left ear is actually a little swollen and painful and I think it’s due to overuse of the earplugs I’ve been clagging in each night. I gave them a miss, and instead was regaled by Hans’ snoring at umpteen occasions overnight. I resorted to the age old method of sticking my leg out and lifting up his mattress so he’d roll over. At least my ear didn’t hurt.

Come daybreak and we packed up, had breakfast and talked to the really nice guy who runs the hotel. It seems he’s rather taken by a young girl who lives in Canada and he’s saving up so he can go over there for a few months and see how things work out. I hope he has better luck with women than me. Nice guy.

At around 10:00, we bundled our kit (which now contained a few more books than it had when we arrived in Pushkar – damn cheap book shops) into the car and set off on the road to Jaipur, the capital of Rajisthan.

The journey is roughly four hours by coach, according to Lonely Planet, so we reckoned on three by car. Despite the distance, the time is reduced by one of the best roads in the region. A nice 6-lane highway with very good paving. The thing is, despite a whacking big central reservation, arrows on the road telling you which way you’re supposed to go and a constant stream of traffic in both directions we still had a “we’re going to die” moment, when the truck in front of us swerved from the fast to the middle lane, revealing two 10-ton lorries barrelling towards us at 50kph.

I gawped at the trucks. I gawped at Hans. Hans gawped at me. We both gawped back at the trucks which were now significantly larger and – more worryingly – closer. Our driver drifted left and let them pass to continue their death-defying cruise down the wrong side of a major thoroughfare. Then he just shrugged and said “this is India”.

Actually, he couldn’t have put it better. It’s the best excuse for everything. I remember in Nigeria my first encounter with the car horn as a signalling device used to frequently, one could mistake it for an automotive sonar system. In Vietnam, the noise was similar but more high-pitched due to the multitude of rickety mopeds on the roads and the sparcity of cars.

In India, there’s a mix of all types of traffic. All of it, though, uses horns. Even when barrelling along a motorway at 100kph:

Toot – I’m to your rear right and want past.

Meeeeeeeeeeeeep – I’m overtaking you, kindly don’t swerve into me.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep – No, sir, I believe I have right of way.

Beep beep beep-beep-beep beep-beep-beep beeeeeep beep-boop – I spent 20,000Rp on a musical horn for my truck and should really get out more.

And on it goes.

Then three’s road markings. Trust me, over here they’re purely for decoration. Mirrors? Women use them for putting makeup on. Don’t think for a second the ones in cars have any other use. In fact, good luck spotting a wing mirror that’s not tucked in against the window so the car can get through an even tinier gap than you’d believe.

Things didn’t stop being interesting there. Oh, no. We stopped for fuel and munchies. This isn’t as simple as it sounds as petrol stations in India sell petrol. And diesel and maybe autogas. Most of them also sell oil. That’s it. No shrink-wrapped sandwiches, chocolate bars, over-priced bottles of Gatorade or dangly air fresheners. Just petroleum products. They are also among the cleanest business establishments you will see in this country, despite selling probably the muckiest product. Go figure.

Anyway, the place we stopped at had a cafeteria/shop just next door so while our driver filled up, we pootled over and grabbed ourselves some (overpriced, naturally) junk food. Once more we took our seats and off we set, Jaipur-wards.

For about three kilometres. At which point the rear left tyre started making flapflapflapflapflap sounds so we pulled over. Flat as.

Fortunately, we had a spare and within fifteen minutes we were on our way. A motorway patrol even stopped and dropped some cones around us. All very civilised. Still, a bit of bad luck so I guess that was Hans’ fault for annoying the priest yesterday.

Fifteen minutes further down the road and the front right tyre started making flapflapflapflapflap sounds. What are the odds…? I guess that was my fault for annoying the other Brahman.

Needless to say we didn’t have another spare – it’s only a dinky car – so our driver set off with the flat after asking a passing pedestrian (yes, on the motorway) which direction the nearest tyre repair place was.

Hans and I wolfed our way through the crisps we’d bought earlier and dodged trucks while we awaited his return. A couple of people did stop to see if we’d run out of fuel, and I’m sure were even offering to drive the wrong way down the motorway to the filling station to pick us up a canister of diesel until we pointed out that one of our wheels was missing. Very kind of them nontheless.

About 45 minutes and 50 pages of my novel later, our saviour returned with a freshly-inflated tyre. In short order we were on our way once more. I don’t think we could have crossed any more fingers unless we were double-jointed.

We made it to Jaipur with no further incident and arrived at the hotel our driver wanted to take us to. It’s become a little bit of a mystery why we go to these places, as quite often he doesn’t know where they are. We can only assume the agency we booked through tells him to use them. Up till now, they’ve been fine, but the first choice today was… well. It was crap.

The first thing we asked when we walked in was “how much?” After staring at Hans for maybe 10 seconds, the aging doorman said “1800 Rupees”. This was ridiculous, but we decided to humour him and went to see the room which was filthy. Again we asked how much. “990 Rupees… how much you pay?”

OK, so we’ve gone from 1800 to 990 and then straight to “how much do you want to pay”? And the room’s awful. And the location’s dreadful.

Over the way was a guest house which was marginally better, a lot cheaper, but still in a poor location as well as being pretty empty.

We decided to try again for one of the places recommended by the girls we met in Delhi – the Atithi Guest House. Our quest began.

Half an hour later we were sat outside the Atithi Palace Hotel. Close, but no cigar. It seems we were close to where we needed to be, but a combination of Lonely Planet’s awful map and a one-way system that Leeds itself would have been proud of was foiling our mission.

We persisted. So did our driver, bless him. A mere twenty minutes later we found the Atithi Guest House and within a minute of walking in had decided it was far, far better than the two places we’d rejected. Clean, bright, friendly staff, very new-looking internet PCs, soft(ish) mattresses, a nice rooftop terrace and some pretty girls in room 203. Bonus. 600Rp a night was more than we’d hoped, but what the hell. It was nice accomodation.

Relieving our driver of duty, we went for a scout around. Flight tickets to Sri Lanka were purchased, my bank account wept, and we located a Pizza Hut for dinner. Hans’ “masala lemonade” turned out to be just that – lemonade with curry powder in. Thankfully his chicken chutneywallah pizza was somewhat better. I stuck with Pepsi and a spicy chicken pizza. Nice and filling.

After picking up some snacks for a very reasonable price, we headed back to the hotel. Hot water is only available from 7:30am-11:30am and 7:30pm-11:30pm so we jumped in the shower one after the other and freshened up for the first time in far too long. Between that shower and shaving, I think I’ve lost about half a stone. I feel like a new mand and I could probably build one from all the dead skin cells that sloughed off me.

Some hefty internet time followed where I managed to get my laptop online for the first time in a while, only for the new versions of Blogger and Picasa to conspire against me and prevent me uploading photos to my blog for no apparent reason. It tries… for ages… and then doesn’t do anything. Posts lost in the ether and I have no idea if the pics have been uploaded or not. It looks like you’ll have to wait till I get them up on Fotopic – sorry for that.

And then to bed and my book, which I’m racing through. I may hate cheap bookshops for the extra load they put on my spinal column and the dent they inflict on my wallet – but another Lee Child book to wade through is always welcome. I managed to find two in Pushkar. And the latest Terry Pratchett paperback. Plenty to get through between temples, monuments, encounters with deadly truck drivers and dealing with miserable hotel staff.

Hey, we’ll even have clean laundry in the morning. Things are looking up. I should insult holy men more often.

Hans shifted his backside out of bed at a reasonable hour for once. I was actually impressed.

Breakfast was gulped down, minimal packing done, bills paid and a car loaded up. We left the hotel shortly after 9am and got on the road to Pushkar. The road in question is a good one by Indian standards, fully tarmacced and quite wide. As a result, it’s used by a lot of trucks ferrying goods back and forth so the traffic can be pretty bad.

This is where our driver came into his own, making full use of the road’s width and convincing us we were going to die on several occasions. I took the only course of action I could think of and fell asleep.

During my waking phases, I saw two rather nasty accidents but as far as I could tell there were no casualties. In one, a truck had driven off the side of a road and rolled. The cab was still complete and the driver sat there looking rather embarassed about how he was going to get his truck back on the road, never mind reload the several hundred bags of gravel that were buried under it.

The other looked like two trucks had encountered each other as one was overtaking. Both had veered to avoid a collision, gone the same direction and ended up crushed against each other, on their sides and off the road again. Thankfully, once more, no casualties seemed to have been involved. Tata (a major motor manufacturer here – our car is made by them) seem to build sturdy trucks.

After almost five hours, we pulled into Pushkar and we settled on the first place our driver took us. Looking at the key-pegs, there were only two rooms left and we didn’t want to go running in circles like the previous day.

This place has a pool – with water in. And leaves. And I don’t know what else. Tempting, but I think I’ll skip it.

Veg fried rice was had for lunch and then we walked into town. As we left the hotel, a small boy handed us some rose petals and told us we were to throw them into the lake as it was a festival day. Amazingly, he didn’t want any money from us so we took him to be genuine and carried our petals with us.

As we neared the lake, we were instructed to take our shoes off and were alloted a Brahman (holy man) each. I sat cross-legged facing mine and he instructed me to wash my hands in the water, sprinkle some in my face (to represent showering) and take a handful of petals and some other things he dropped into my cupped hands. Next followed some chanting during which he asked me how many family members I had and so on.

Now this is where Lonely Planet warn you to watch out. Basically, they want a donation and they often try to make it per family member that you’re getting good fortune for. My guy’s face dropped when he found out I had no brothers and sisters, and I only agreed to give 50 Rupees (fair, I thought, for a charitable donation I wasn’t expecting to give in the first place). He had other ideas. It rose to 100Rp. Per person. I noticed that “five hundred” was appearing a few times in the mantra and thought this was a little odd.

Finally, he wrapped a piece of string around my wrist and told me this would get me into any temple in the city. Without it, no entry. People in Pushkar know how this works. Or something. Apparently.

Then he asked for my 500 Rupees. I told him I didn’t have 500 Rupees. No problem, he tells me, as his friend behind me can take me to an ATM on his bike. Ah, joy. The old situation of religion being more about money than people – an old bugbear of mine.

Hans stepped in as things got a little heated – he’d managed to talk his Brahman down to 35 Rupees, just the spare change from his wallet basically. Then, because, Hans wouldn’t lend me the money despite not having any more he was yelled at by the supposed holy man for “being funny in a holy place”.

Oh dear.

The upshot was we both had our bits of string removed again. And… erm… that was it. Oh, we got yelled at by a priest. Or someone pretending to be one. I’m just glad he wasn’t a gypsy as they apparently do really good curses. This guy just accused us of being homosexual. I’ve heard worse from schoolkids.

Back in the market area, walking along the streets, two girls approached us and started with the usual “where are you from”, “when you get to Pushkar” and so on. They wanted to shake hands and one of them grabbed mine and wouldn’t let go. Then she started dribbling some kind of gunk out of a tube into the palm of my hand, drawing a really crappy flower. Every time I wriggled, she gripped tighter and squeezed more gunk out.

Of course, for the resultant masterpiece, she wanted Rupees as it was her job to draw henna patterns on people. Of course, if you do a job, you get paid. That’s logical enough, but so is asking someone if they want the job done first. This bit of logic seemed to escape her, as did we after about a hundred yards or bickering.

We went online for a while to sort out hotels and more flight details, during which time I eventually found a scrap of paper to wipe the gunk off my hand. It looks like I got drunk and passed out in the same room as a 3 year-old with an orange felt tip who took a fancy to my hand. Ah well, it could have been worse. Maybe.

After the internet, we walked back to the hotel during which time I was targetted by a small boy who did the whole “I’m starving” routine and asked me to buy him chocolate, or “just one biscuit”. I’ll give him this – he was persistent. He kept a hand on one or other of my shoulders for a good ten minutes as we walked back, telling me it would be “good karma” until we reached the end of the food shops and he latched onto someone going the other direction with a cry that I was a “bad man”.

Now I can see why some people don’t like India. I can let this all wash over me like water off a duck’s back, but I guess the couple I met in Australia couldn’t. This is all just so much “stuff” to me, but it’s bound to affect different people different ways.

Don’t get me wrong – I care about children starving on the street. I care a lot. But how do I know I’m giving to the right one? How do I know he’s not getting a kickback from a shopkeeper who’ll overcharge me for stuff? How do I know he’s not just greedy?

This is why I only give to organised charities, or to those individuals who are obviously making an effort to help themselves long term. It’s also why I’m more prepare to give to animal charities than those helping people. Most people, if they try, can make something of themselves. They can get out of any situation they find themselves in. There is help there if they seek it out. Animals aren’t so lucky, and don’t have an option – so they get my sympathy more.

Just for the record, I also tend not to donate to charities with a large religious influence either. Far too many horror stories of priests in Africa telling the locals not to use condoms as they cause AIDS… People should help people because they want to, not because they have some hidden agenda.

I guess I may as well plug an old favourite again – Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is run just how charities should be, by the kind of people that should be running them and for people who really need and appreciate that help.

Where on earth did that soapbox come from?

Well, it wasn’t so bad a night after all. We sat up till late talking about obscure heavy metal bands and drinking all the beer in the hotel. All two bottles of it that they’d bought earlier in the day from the market for us, so we could hardly turn it down!

Come morning, we set off at 10am to go to the Shri Ranakpur Jain Temple down the road. Lonely Planet gives this one a big push – 29 sections, 1444 pillar each of which is different from the others. Thing is, it was also closed to non-Jain until midday and we weren’t going to stand around for two hours to get in. We got to see around the outside and it is a formidable looking structure, but those pillars eluded us.

The Jain, as far as we can ascertain, are a sect of Hindus who seem to follow very strict guidelines. They dress all in white, and women have pink plastic “masks” over their mouths when out in public. Our driver had been pointing them out when we saw them at the roadside from time to time, though they’re easy to spot due to the white robes.

From there, we settled in for the three-and-a-bit-hour drive to Udaipur. The scenery once again changed slightly, and we saw more windy roads and mountains. At one point, my ears popped so I guess we were getting higher!

Along the way we stopped to take some snaps of a water wheel being driven by two hefty cows. As we clicked away, we were accosted by the usual rag-tag bunch of kids after spare rupees, foreign money or pens. As usual, we had large denomination former and neither of the latter to give out. It didn’t stop the kids trying, though.

That was the only interruption to our journey and we made it to the Dream Heaven Guesthouse – recommended by the girls in Delhi – around 2pm. After climbing three floors (including a scary, ricketty outside spiral stair) to get to the reception, we discovered they were full. At least we’d not carted all our bags up.

I’d spotted a sign for the Panorama, which Hans recognised as being recommended in Lonely Planet. We walked over there and found that it, too, was full! Udaipur seems a popular place with foreigners and Indians alike. However, we were told that the brother of the man who runs Panorama had just opened a new guest house – which we had parked outside.

So back we walked, and checked into the Hotel Hanuman Ghat. A nice enough place, and as convenient for everything as just about every other hotel in the immediate area. Basically, where we were was the guest house district. Over nearer the lake is the upmarket hotel district where the quality goes up, but so do the prices.

We took a stroll along and across the river, watching some people doing washing in the calm water. A couple of kids went for a swim, as did one oldergent – fully clothed! – before stripping off to dry his togs. Lunch was at a restaurant by the bridge nearest our hotel. There was a large group of orientals sat there when we arrived, all chowing down on Korean food. Hans scared them by talking in fluent Korean, which earned a lot of giggles fromthe girls. Well, his parents are Korean even if he, by his own standards, doesn’t look it.

My stomach hadn’t been feeling great, I think more down to the travel than diet, so I settled on a plate of chips and a cheese and tomato pizza. Hans tucked into some of the Korean cuisine which he rated quite highly.

Our daily internet stop was next. A slow connection, but a cheap price and I cleared up a mountain of emails. We also looked into flight prices and hotels in Mumbai, hopefully all of which we’ll make a decision on tomorrow once we get a couple of mails back.

In the evening, we headed up to the roof top restaurant for a bite to eat and a film. Amost everywhere in Udaipur shows (or at least say they show) Octopussy each evening. Three of the palaces and one of the Maharajah’s cars (a Roller) were used in the film so it’s a bit of a touristy thing. It seems the locals have become a little bored with the film, though, so we ended up watching Superman Returns and Crank from a pirate DVD instead. Pretty enjoyable, in all fairness. Hans reckons the special thali he had was the best meal he’s eaten in India so far. I settles on chicken fried rice, which was also rather nice, washed down with a large bottle of Kingfisher.

At various points in the evening, fireworks exploded around us. It’s wedding season in India right now, and apparently it’s causing problems. Like virtually every country in the world, the population is increasing. Everyone wants to get married at around the same time for traditional reasons and they’re running out of venues. Calls have been made to extend curfews in some cities so that they can squeeze extra weddings in each day.

Then to bed with an early rise in the morning. As the streets nearby are narrow and precluded parking, our driver had to leave us and said he’d be back at 9am prompt the next day. Hans was going to have to shift his backside out of bed at a reasonable hour for once!