Heathrow to Jaipur
- Ben
- Dec 1, 2017
- 3 min read
First post, here goes! We arrived in Delhi on Tuesday morning and got a prepaid taxi to Madpackers Hostel. This was our first experience of traffic in Delhi and it is truly nuts. Upon arrival we got chatting to a really nice couple from Windsor who'd arrived earlier that day and we ended up going for dinner with them at a place round the corner from our hostel. Everything here is cheap but the food had such great flavour - between the four of us we had about six dishes and paid no more than £3 each.
The next day we woke up and went on an organised walking tour of Old Delhi with a bunch of people from the hostel, mostly from the UK and Aus. It was a 'foodies' walking tour and included four different types of street food and a rooftop chai tea – where a Bollywood film was being filmed; we weren't asked to make an appearance unfortunately. That night we went for dinner again with our friends from Windsor (Harvey & Daisy), where we paid less than £2 each for dosai and sharing platters.
(Image: Old Delhi walking tour, 8am – roaming the streets with us)
We boarded the train to Agra the next day and got a Tuk Tuk to our hostel, Zostel, where we roomed with with a lovely couple from Southampton. The food here was fantastic, I had some of the best dum aloo I've ever tasted. We woke up the next day and walked to Agra Fort and the Baby Taj Mahal – both equally stunning - and then went for dinner with Lois and Joshua (Southampton). One piece of advice, if you're not used to wearing flip flops, don't wear them on a four hour walk through India, they will shred your feet.
(Image: Baby Taj, Agra)
Our alarms went of at 5:30am so that we could catch the Taj Mahal at sunrise and it did not disappoint. We bumped in to a couple from Bristol in the queue for the Taj – so local! Molly and I turned the corner to view the Taj and were both speechless, it is a truly magnificent sight. We spent about two hours just wandering around, taking photos and watching others pose for their shots.
(Image: Taj Mahal at 7am, Agra)
The rest of the day was spent chilling at the hostel and charging our electronics before our train to Jaipur which was delayed for four hours! Luckily we'd been monitoring the train using an app called Trainman, so we waited at the hostel rather than the station. In our first class carriage we met a great guy called Harrish who was returning home from the Indian Army for wedding season. He was getting married in about a weeks time and was showing us all of his family photos and telling us about his wedding plans – this made the four hour trip much more enjoyable. He was also really into dance music and was listening to sets from Tomorrowland, which we loved.
Blue Beds hostel were incredibly helpful and booked us a Tuk Tuk to take us to the hostel upon arrival at the station, checking us in at 2:30am. We woke up to a traditional Indian breakfast (not really) of peanut butter on toast and scrambled eggs on toast before heading out to explore the Pink City, as Jaipur is known. We had been in the City Palace (beautiful) less than five minutes and already bumped into Harvey & Daisy and Joshua & Lois, so went for lunch with H & D at a rooftop restaurant which had spectacular views of the city and outer city forts. We had our first beer here since leaving home and it was an absolute delight!
(Image: Rooftop beers with Daisy & Harvey, Jaipur)
That evening we chilled in the hostel and ended up watching Saints hammer Everton 4 - 1 then watched a Bollywood movie with everyone - it was pretty funny actually! We also got chatting to an English lad who had recently bought a Royal Enfield motorbike up north and was planning to drive it across India and over to Vietnam – a seriously brave guy considering how people drive over here.
We've had a great introduction to India so far and would recommend the hostels we've stayed along the way. Next stop Mumbai and then down south to relax on some of Goa's amazing beaches.
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