Day 4 - Travel day - Jaipur, India

Day 4 - Saturday, January 20th - Travel Day/Jaipur, India

So this day started out GREAT because I found out that TashM was coming to me!!!! YAY!!!! She wouldn't get to me until about 3am the next day, but she was coming and that was all that mattered. I arranged for a taxi to be waiting for her at the airport when she got to India (10pm) to drive her right then to me in Jaipur. Till then I had my five hour drive ahead of me to Jaipur. The drive was quite adventurous. My taxi driver was Rahm. (A picture to come of him later.) This was really my first taste of India roads, and they were quite a shock. But I got to Jaipur, five hours later, SAFE and SOUND!!!

I was VERY happy to get to this hotel. As you can see, it had a gated, GUARDED enterance!!!! SO NICE, and I felt SO SAFE!!!! The guard was like SEVEN FEET TALL!!!!! I was SO suprised to find someone taller than me!!!! hehehe

Here is a pic of me infront of the hotel. I'm in the shadows, but I'm there!

Now I will show you some pictures of the roads of India...

This picture shows you "Rick-a-shaws". Now I am not sure if I spelled that right, but that is how you would pronounce it. A "Rick-a-shaw" is the thing in the picture that looks like a three wheeled bicycle with a "seat for two" and cover to it. These you can catch to almost anywhere for what is equivilant to 40 cents. SO CHEAP!!! It is run by the "driver" on the bike that you hire. Pretty cool, but VERY scary on busy streets or... what I bring you to next...

One thing that India offers on it's streets is a plethera of animals... from elephants getting a bath on the median...

To camels pulling cargo... yup, camels...

To cows and bulls roaming the streets!!!! AAAAHHHH!!! The ironic thing is... the animals run the streets. Cars stop and wait patiently for them to move. A horn every now and then, but none the less, patiently wait. Just FYI, these pictures are not just one or two roads, the roads are ALL like this. Even the MAJOR HIGHWAYS!!!!

Here is a shot of two boys that BEGGED me from outside the taxi window to take a picture of them. They wanted to see what it looked like on the digital screen after it was taken, I did. It is hard to put into words the poverty that I experienced in this country. It was everywhere. It really makes you look at your life and realize how much we have to be thankful for...

Now on to some sightseeing...

This was a BEAUTIFUL Budist temple... got a nice pic at sunset...

Here is the Monkey Palace... SO COOL!!!! SOOOOOOO SCARY being by myself!!!!! I knew that this was one place I was going to come back to when TashM finally got to me. It was SO cool being so close to the monkey's!!!!! SO scary as they were NOT afraid of me and got WAY to close for my comfort level. At least with me being by myself and all. This picture above is the enterance way to the Monkey Palace. It doesn' look real does it, like out of a movie. Yes, I do have a funny story to insert here...

So if you can look at the end of the road, there is a black bull. As most of you who know me REAL well, I was a bit intimidated to walk by a HUGE bull. I decided to just do it, be confident. I think that I threw up a little bit in my mouth as I passed him. As you get to the enterance way, there is a turn-style like thing to go through. Obviously so that the bulls can't get through. Well as I was "confidently" walking towards the turn-style I felt the bull following close behind me, but as I reached the safety of the other side of the turn-style I felt myself let out a sigh of relief. No sooner did I do that, did it let out a GIGANTIC AND REDICULOUSLY LOAD GROAN!!!! It scared the breath right out of me, so much so that I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs!!!! Needless to say, ALL of the people in the surrounding area were laughing HYSTERICALLY at the dumb foreign girl. I smiled, bowed, and continued on my way. Suprisingly NOT embarassed, but definitely a little light headed as the blood had all rushed to my head and was working it's way back down to my heart.

Hope you enjoyed that... even as I type it, I LAUGH HYSTERICALLY at myself... NEVER a dull moment in my life, NEVER!!!!! HA!!!! On to the next...

Here is a picture of the monkey's and the close proximity of them to me... AAAAHHH!!!! I will choose monkey's over that bull ANY day!!!!!!!

Here are just some pretty pictures of the palace that I got...

I LOVE this picture... the way the beams of light shine is breathtaking!!!!!

This is a picture of the Water Palace... with no water!!!! HA!!!! Once apon a time, this palace was surrounded by water. Now though, it has dried up. All the same, it was REALLY cool!!!!

After a VERY eventful day, I headed back to my hotel. I got back around 7pm and had dinner at the hotel's resturant. After dinner I went back to my room and passed out with the happy thought of when I wake-up, TashM would be back with me!!!!!! Tash and Tam together again!!! Traveling alone is great and all, but this was supposed to be two friends taking on India together.

I get a call around 3:30am............. it's TashM!!!!!!!! I go out to get her as they needed me to say that it was her and she was staying with me. Now I WISH that I had a picture of her face when she saw me!!!! It was a look that said.... "Am I really here?" and "Is that really you?" and "This country is SO SCARY!" and "I need a HUG!" and "Did you SEE the size of the security guard?" and MANY more things that made me SO HAPPY to see her!!!!! I took her back to the room, and as tired as we both were, we stayed up ALL night talking, sharing our stories, and laughing at all that had happened already!!! One of the stories I heard about was, of course, her "Bangkok Belly" that was now "Delhi Belly". Just to point out, EVERY DAY thus far she has had stomach problems, POOR TashM!!!!! Anyway, I think we MAYBE got one hour sleep that night. YAY for no sleep and lots of laughing!!!! Friends ROCK!!!!!

Tomorrow is going to be GREAT!!!!! Let the fun begin... BRING IT ON INDIA!!!!!