From Pushkar we had about a 3 hour drive upto Jaipur which is known as the pink city because all of the buildings within the orignal city walls are painted the same colour (more terracotta than pink though)!  We drove straight into the centre and met up with our guide Eugene who showed us around the city palace museum which consisted of 4 parts, arts, weapons, crafts and textiles.  From there we headed around the corner to an obseravtory which was built in the 1700's.  There were a number of very large contraptions to tell a lot of things from the sun, time, date, astronomical predictions etc...  This included the largest sun dial in the world which is accurate to within 2 seconds.

After the observatory we left Jaipur and headed out to Eugene's farm which is about an hour away where we are camping for the night.  Eugene had a cook come in prepare some tradional Indian food for us and I can safely say that goat is delicious!  This was our last night camping with the original team as several of the group are leaving in Delhi, so when we were in Jaipur we bought all the ingredients to make a punch.  2 bottles of Vodka, 2 bottles of Bacardi, 4 litres of mixed fruit juice and 4 litres of Sprite plus a load of fruit is a great recipe if anybody wants to give it a go.  We managed to finish the punch off by about 3 and had a great night, one of the highlights of which was Joanna and Valery modelling Michaels chain-mail bra!

In the morning we left late due to hangovers and headed back towards Jaipur to see Amber which was the capital before Jaipur was built.  It is a huge fortress with palaces, mosques and apartments which has not been used since Jaipur was built.  It is a very steep climb upto the entrance and as we were all feeling a bit jaded we hired jeeps to take us to the top!

That night we stayed in the Latchmi Villas hotel in Jaipur and we headed into town to watch a bollywood movie in the largest cinema in India.  The film was much better than I thought it would be and is one of the biggest hits they have had in a long time.  The film was in Hindi, so we had to make our own story up as we went along.  The title of the film was Unfaithful though, so we had a bit of a head start.  One of the highlights of the evening was finding a McDonalds next to the cinema, our first western food for 3 weeks and it tasted lovely.  I love curry, but was great to have a change.

The following morning we left Jaipur and headed to Delhi which is the end of the trip for Michael, Dave, Leslie and Bryan.  Is a shame that they are leaving as we all get on well.  We have picked up 2 new people, Paul who is a 21 year old Australian from Perth and Martin who is 38 and is from Northampton, both seem really cool and will fit into the team nicely.

So far the driving in India has not been too bad, nothing like I expected, atleast that was the case until we drove into Delhi, crazy stuff!  We went to see the Red Fort and then onto Raj Ghat, which is where Mahatma Ghandi was cremated.  Just walking around Delhi though is madness as there are so many people (nearly 14 million to be precise).

We are staying in the Hotel Good Times in Delhi and we have certainly had some as it has a rooftop bar with really cheap beer (660ml bottles of kingfisher for 90p).  Today is our last day here and we leave at 6 in the morning to go to Amritsar to see the Golden temple and then to the Pakistan border to see them close the border where they have grandstand seats as it is such a rediculous ceremony  (if you have seen Michael Palin's Himalaya series then you know what I am talking about).  From there we head down to Bikaner which is where they have the rat temple and then into the desert for a 2 day camel safari with some local tribesmen, so that should be great fun.

I am not sure when I will next have acceess to the internet, but will hopefully put up another post in a week or so.