Jaipur old city - pink city

The old part of the city of Jaipur is known as the pink city. Unfortunately it had rained in the morning and was drizzily most of the day so it made for some unpleasant muddy getting around.

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Just a small side note, the filth in China is nothing compared to India, the streets are always dirty, the footpaths are only half footpath, half dirt and most walls double as a urinal. There is rubbish everywhere and quite often human excrement is found along the footpath area. The safest and cleanest place to walk is along the road, just so long as you avoid the holes that is.
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Anyway, Jaipur pink city. It seems like one huge bazaar. All the streets we went along were teeming with vendors, once again grouped into themes. We also saw monkeys climbing around the buildings, cattle on the streets and even a camel pulling a cart, sadly I was too slow and missed the photo but did get an ox cart later. I climbed a minarette but due to rain and fog couldn't see more than about half a kilometer so hopefully will make it back on a better day.

The minarette

Spot the monkey.

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Welcome to India Rail

The ride was good. The info was bad. We got to where we were going, eventualy.
We had booked the train a few days ago, no problem. We arrived at the station early and found the train and our carriage, it is massive, I guess 500 m long. I should have been more curious when one of the guards said it wasn't going to Jaipur but the ticket matched the train so no problem. We got some snacks for the journey and boarded on time, the train even left on time.
We had been chatting and playing cards with the young man in the same cabin and his father tells us the train don't stop at Jaipur. We were quite surprised as the conductor had just checked our ticket and hadn't said a word. After tracking him down again we found out the train has been re-routed to avoid protesters that have been blocking the tracks, now we have to change at Ringus station and catch another train from there after 1 1/2 hour wait at 9 pm. In my travels up and down the train I found 2 other groups of Europeans and when checking they also were going to Jaipur and hadn't been told. We were about 1/2 hour late arriving at Ringus so thought cool, less time to wait. After alighting from the train we went to the station office and confirmed the info for the next part of the journey. 9:15 platform 2. We went to wait, half way there we were met by 2 chatty young men going the other direction but on a later train. They followed us over the bridge and stayed chatting. Soon after we had taken our packs off we started to gather a crowd of young boys and men, many of whom were homeless and lived in the station. They were all curious, mostly shy, some said hello then when we said hello back had an embarrassed giggle and turned away. It was quite an interesting experience and felt very safe. Our train eventualy turned up at and we departed about 10pm on the 1 hour ride to our final destination where we were picked up by the hotel without incident.

Waiting for boarding.

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Red Fort

We had a good day wandering around the red fort. There are a few museums as well as all the mosques both great and small. There's not a lot to write about the place so I will just be lazy and put the pictures.

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Incredibly we got out today.

We went out and met our friend Emily at Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in Asia. It was built in 1656 so is quite old. It's mostly an open square with a large square pond in the middle, there are gates on the north, east and south sides, on the west side is the main building structure. It is a basic building made of red sandstone with the decorative parts and domes made of white marble. There are also 2 spires, one each side of the main building. One is open to paying tourists so we went up, the view was quite good but foggy and polluted so we couldn't see far.
The mosque is in old Delhi and we had a wander around afterward. It is a very interesting area, it seems like every single inch of every street and lane and passage between buildings is used for commerce. There must be tens of thousands of vendors selling all sorts of things. The streets seemed to run in themes like books, hardware, saris, car parts and jewelry. We had a fantastic day and finished with a meal of butter chicken and tandor cooked mughal mutton with tandori roti bread.

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More Vodafone, grrrrrrr.

Back for the third day in a row. After yet more time, at the worst service phone shop I have ever been to, waiting for someone to come from another shop to help, we went there when he didn't come. The problem was fixed in 1/2hour, a simple email to get someone to reset my phone on the switch. So it has now been 5 days of our trip to Delhi and because of the filthy dirty dishonest scheming scaming bstards here we still haven't seen a sight apart from disgusting Delhi as I have pet named the place.
Hopefully tomorrow we will see something. That would be a nice Christmas present from India to us, just let us see some sights.
This evening we did go on the metro to a small city 25 km south as it is described as having ultra modern office blocks and snazzy shopping malls. Well, it was ok and the people were better behaved for the most part. It was good to have a little bit of cleanliness even if it was only inside the malls.
We had a fantastic laugh at the people at the train station. It was the first stop so the train pulling up was empty. As soon as the doors opened the people, if you can call them that, pushed, shoved, fought and ran to secure a seat. We just stood back and laughed, it was like watching two year olds at a lollie scramble.
Well, we wish you all a merry Christmas and tomorrow you will see pictures of something interesting, hopefully.

Last night we had a drink with a new friend. This is the scene from the rooftop.

A snazzy mall, Delhi style.

Nice clean money they got here, NOT!

View from a rooftop.

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Tomorrow a sight will be seen, maybe

Today was spent re-negotiating the room and on the metro back and forth to Vodafone to get sim cards organised. The paperwork is ridiculous an we needed photos and proof of address, just to use a damn phone, Incredible India indeed.
A typical scene on the footpath.

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Delhi, city of scammer, tours and dust

We were picked up from the airport as arranged, all was going well until we arrived at the wrong hotel. The representative from the hotel we booked was there so we thought it might be ok. He told us the place we had booked wad full and he had arranged this one for us. When checking the room it had a broken toilet seat so they offered a new room. Which wouldn't be ready for about 1-2 hours. We checked in and suddenly the room was ready. We took the lift with bags to the 3rd floor and to the new room. I'd was quite dark as the window was into a hollow lift size square about the size of am elevator shaft. The shower was a tap with bucket and dish to scoop water and the air con was a fan, all completely not like the photos or description on the booking site. We were stuck at that stage so left our bags and went out. They had "kindly" kept a driver for us. We wanted to go to an ATM and then the government travel agency for free maps. We ended up talking to a lovely gentleman with a thick soft British accent who wanted to sell us tours to Rajasthan and a Delhi city tour. Very low pressure to try to sucker us with trust. After about 5 minutes our free map arrived, it was from 2005 and does not have any metro lines or stations on it. I asked him to indicate on the map where we were and he only gave a vague circle the length of a street, he would not be any more exact. After we went to the atm outside. It had no marking so I refused to use it. The driver then showed us to another one that looked more legitimate, it was inside and had markings of the bank it belonged to as well as having clear signage outside.
We went back to the hotel to start wandering around from there to get our bearings, when we wanted to go back up to the room, can you guess, sorry elevator finish now, so we walked up the stairs. When we went back out again we went toward the train main station then to Connaught place, we were hungry and wanted to find the genuine tourist office. We were touted at all the way and followed separately twice by filthy children that tap on your arm and indicate eating to try to get money from you. We found McDonald's and had some food, at least McDonald's has standards for hygiene. After lunch we found the genuine tourist office and got some maps and info. From there we went to a travel office and they helped us find a better hotel for about the same price. Collecting our bags wasn't too much drama apart from they now miraculously had room available at the place we had booked online. Needless to say we continued with our new plans and left. We had a guy from the travel office to show us the new hotel. End of day 1.
Apart from the scam the place is dusty. It's in the air, on the street, everywhere. The streets are more like dirt roads. You can sure tell we are in a 3rd world country. The thing that surprised us most was we are in the middle of Delhi and expected a city, there's not.

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Red Bull, Holy Pullas and Crickets

We went to find the Shrine of Goddess Tubtim the goddess of fertility, on the way we found another Red Bull F1 car. This one is pure Red Bull as you can see.

Next off to the shrine. It was quite pleasant and peaceful apart from the occasional river taxi. It is in a simple garden beside a hotel carpark and a waterway. The main theme is phalluses, many made of carved wood, some cement, some decorated.

On the way home we stopped by the local markets. We had once before seen a lady selling insects but not since. She was there again tonight and I had been keen to try them so got 2 different types of cricket and some caterpillar mealworm type things. The caterpillars and one of the cricket types had been deep fried until crisp and spiced with favoured salt, the other crickets seemed lightly fried as they were a little juicy. All were delicious, probably nutritious as well.

One more day in Thailand. I can't wait to see what culinary delights India brings.

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Museums galore

We have had the most fascinating afternoon at Siriraj hospital, actually in the hospitals museums. There are six, anatomy, parasites, forensic, pathology, Thai medicine and prehistoric. We looked through all. Unfortunately photography is banned in all of them so no pics.
We started off in pathology where there are many still born and varying stages of pregnancy babies all preserved in liquid, I guess formaldahyde. There are several showing birth defects like spina difida and cojoined twins.
Next was the forensic section. Once again it had many preserved body parts as well as bones and a few mummified bodies. Many of the parts showing trauma that resulted in the death of the person, for example punctured lungs from stab wound, ruptured liver from car accident. There were many bullet wounds and skulls with bullet holes and cuts from knife or axe.
Next was the parasites. They had many worms on display in jars as well as life cycles of common human infecting parasites like malaria.
Next prehistoric museum. This was quite interesting and had many stone tools as well as bones and even a skull 4000 years old. There was also a display of the evolution of man from a common ancestor of chimps with casts of skulls including australapithicus.
Finally the anatomy museum. This was full of bits. Some of the most fascinating are the full body of arteries and nerves. It is amazing to look at just one part of the body suspended all by itself kind of like an outline. Once again there were many babies, one had one eye and an extended nose, kind of like cyclops meets the elephant.
Between museums we noticed some excitement outside so we went to look. There was a F1 car, probably on promotional tour, I did het a photo of that.

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Pics

That's one nice car. Dreams are free.

So was the Thai boxing at MBK. I realy don't see the sense in 2 people beating each other up for others pleasure, but this crowd obviously does.

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Livin' it up

We took the boat up river to check out Khao San rd. We wanted to see what the backpacker area, made famous in the opening scenes of the movie "The Beach", was all about. It was realy cool, actually it was quite hot but you know what I mean. There are a few streets surrounding the main rd that are full of markets, open air pubs and restaurants. We had a great time just wandering around exploring. Sadly the Bangladesh refugees selling tailored suits have taken quite a hold in the area, also you constantly hear the sound of chirping wooden frog sales women, I got a picture of a group of them having a break, they look quite cute in their outfits and hats.
The highlight of the day was a fish spa. We had a 15 minute session. The first few minutes are intense tickling until you get used to it. Our feet have never looked so clean and they feel so light afterward.
We got a tuk tuk home and treated ourselves to a 1/2 hour Thai foot massage, it was a fantastic way to finish the day, and a great deal at 100 baht, about $4.

An old fort near the river, complete with canons.

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Chinatown area

We went out to Mo Chit this morning. There is an enormous market there. It was ok but not as exciting as it looked from the outside, for me anyway, as there was acres and acres of clothing and shoes and more clothing, anyway it got a bit boring so we decided to go to Chinatown. Just off the train and we were stopped by a scammer telling us Chinatown has nothing on today, we should go the other direction. The heat had got to us a bit so I told him b/s he's just trying to scam us. Go away. He got the message. We continued on our way. First real stop, let's see what US$40 million in gold looks like. Well, it looks Like a Buddha, all nice and shiny too. It is a statue 4.8m high, weighing 5 tons and about 700 years old. It spent many years hiding under plaster to stop it being stolen but is now on display for all to worship, and while your there why not put a donation in the box for the monks, I mean its not as if you didn't already pay 40 baht for entry fee.
From there we just wandered toward Chinatown getting some streetfood on the way and wandering around the markets. KFC for dinner and a tuk tuk home.

An old oil / kero lamp in a Chinatown shop. It is huge, about 1 m high.

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Lumpini Park

Yesterday we went to Lumpini park, there was a street show on with several different performances dotted around the place.
Just inside the gate tete was a guy doing acrobatics on a tall pole. Afterward they took the pile down and started to use the long cloth ribbon hanging down to do more stuff.
The most amazing one was the Chinese acrobat, he started on a table with one pipe with a board and balanced on it, even with 1 hand. Then he added another pipe then another, then another. Eventually he was balancing on 5 pipes on top of a table, then he did a full 360 degrees rotation on his hands. Totally amazing!

Afterward we went to Paptong market and had a look around. I finally got a picture of the mini tuk tuks.

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