Tuesday 29th January 2008

After a massage (everyone except Elijah), we drove 4½ hours to Jaipur, checked into “the Maharani Palace” and chilled out watching Indian TV. Dinner and an early night, just what the doctor ordered. Sounds uneventful doesn’t it? But no drive in India is without its full share of amazing sights, smells and sounds. Beautiful women in gorgeous saris digging on the road gang, red-nosed camels with ridiculously overloaded wagons whose drivers look straight out of biblical times except for the MOBILE PHONE they’re using, several incredibly elaborate wedding parades complete with generators for the fluro ligts and loud speakers, 100’s of trucks swerving in & out, coming straight at you, overtaking motorbikes carrying 4 or 5 passengers on roads that are only 4 metres wide (It totally resembles one of those smash-‘em-up truck races you see on the TV ads where the guy is screaming at you to “get your backside trackside!”). Seriously, every couple of minutes you gasp in fear of your life, but to these people it’s totally normal, no one gets “road rage”, they just go around you if you’re coming at them on their side of the road. Actually, on reflection, I don’t think there is a designated side to drive on. Needless to say we have a VERY healthy prayer life at the moment (and a great driver – apart from his braking technique). Pete

Monday 28th January 2008
Yesterday after Lunch we went on a safari but we saw no tigers, although we did see monkeys and deer. We met a guy called Nam from America. The safari went for 4 hours. When we came back for dinner we sat around the fire listening to some Indian people play music and I danced with one of them and then we had some dinner and went to bed. Elijah Kaz got a beautiful handcrafted bedspread, some ear rings & a pendant, some Kashmir woollen shawls for the 3 girls and a pure Pashmiri scarf for moi at the Pugmark’s gift shop. We think we got a bargain but you never can tell. Pete