At last Internet!

Hi...So good to speak again. Its amazing, even in Cambodia and Laos they have wifi everywhere but here it just isn't around. We are at our homestay, sourced from couchsurfing.com, in Japur and due to leave soon but let me tell you about the last few days....

After speaking the other night I got chatting to a German chap who told us he had got the first plane into Dehli when he had discovered the festival being run at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. You can do what I did and look it up on the web if you like, so when I saw what it was we thought it would be silly to miss that so decided to postpone our leaving Dehli for another day. On Sunday we went to the market where Maria had ordered a punjab suit and had to collect, sounds easy but when you are faces with hundreds of shops all offering tailoring its a complete nightmare trying to find the one. We walked round and round for hours, asking many people, you get to be able to recognise a probable English speaking Indian. We had two young men ask if they could help, we explained and they made a phone call and whilst we waited for their friend to arrive I asked if they were business men(naturally I was expecting them to escort us to their moneymaking enterprise as that appears to be the norm here) to my amazement they explained quietly that they were in fact plain clothed police! So that is the explanation of how we were escorted by the police but in this case to the place we needed to be!

I was starving we had only had breakfast so more crisps as that is one of the few items I presume to be safe.From there we went to the Arts Centre and watched the most incredible parade of masked people(I have photos) later we watched two shows, the first was a puppet/light show, so very clever and the puppets are approx. 1 and a half metres high. The second show was a masked show and brilliant. This was all free, very unusual for here.

So back to Dehli in a different hotel as I had said I was not happy to stay where we were for a third night. We had viewed the agreed room earlier in the day , it seemed fine however when we arrived late we found the beds were covered with bugs! It was really disgusting, we had dirty sheets and filthy pillowcases, we asked for clean ones and were given damp ones. We had no towels, there is never any toilet paper and the noise all through the night as, guess what, they were doing building work! So Maria couldn't sleep at all, it really was the worst hotel we have ever stayed in. The next morning we asked to see the Manager to explain that we were not intending to pay the balance of the bill. We had a huge issue the manager was not contactable, we went to breakfast with an escort from the hotel so we didn't do a runner! It was so funny. He disappeared and we went to the agent we had agreed to arrange our trip around Rajesthan. We told him, he tried to phone the hotel but the phone was disconnected! We walked back as we didn't want the youngsters to have the balance deducted from their salary. Had a few words with the Manager making our point and left for Rajesthan.

We have a driver and a car for our 10 day trip. the itinerary is

Dehli

Agra

Japur

Puskar

Udaipur

Jodhpur

Jaisalmer

Bikaner

Mandwa

Dehli

In Agra we did not have an overnight stay as there is not much there except of course the Taj Mahal so after seeing that, which was exquisite ( I wish a man would love me so very much that he even built just one of the turrets for me) we then drove to Japur where we had this homestay arranged.

Today Sonny( the man of the house) is taking us to his village where he sponsors many children, we will have lunch with his family and intend to give the rest of the clothes etc, later we are leaving with our driver for Puskar

Forgot to say, we had previously got a quote for our trip from another agent and obviously intended to acquire a second quote. We had great problems getting away from the original agent however finally managed to slip out of his sight, (they have others watching for you and the moment you appear from a doorway they call the agent who then appears in front of you again greeting you etc) Anyway we found the second quote preferable so our agreed price is 205 pounds sterling each, half of which we have paid and the balance to pay during the trip, this includes all the fuel and hotels required. Not bad!

I must go now and hope to speak again soon. It was lovely speaking to Dad, Terri and the girls yesterday, my sim ran out of money so apologises to my Jazmin for disappearing in the middle of our brief chat. Will get money on card today.

Love you x x