Ok after a few days in India the culture shock did subside, and there are some wonderful sights, its just a pity about the attitude of the men! Deb - I have truly mastered the f**k off face now, thanks for all your lessons.
Feel like I visited every inch of Rajasthan so if anyone wants to go I'm now an authority ...I've seen every temple,palace and fort(there are thousands!!)...lots of dead dogs, a human funeral and a monkey funeral (don't ask - but the monkey one was more elaborate).
Places I visited included; Jaipur, Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Mandawa. The best out of these where Pushkar and Udaipur. Pushkar is a smallish city but has a real laid back feel, probably because its famous for its marijuana milkshakes even tho its called the holy city?? Anyway its one of the few places I could wonder around and feel safe (maybe that's because I got a blessing from the local holy man and had a bindi stuck on my head...it didn't quite go with the blonde hair tho so i scrubbed it off sharpish). The place is full of travellers that landed there 5 yrs ago but never quite escaped the pull of the laid back attitude.
Udaipur is the city with the two lake palaces that are famous for being in the Bond film Octopussy. Although the lakes have dried up a little due to droughts its still beautiful and again good to potter around by myself. Here is where I almost stared in a Bollywood movie ....well not quite. Nammie my guide drove me up to Monsoon Palace to watch the sun set over the mountains, and there was a film being shot in the palace grounds...some America director shouting poncy demands out everywhere..don't think i quite made it into the background tho.
Highs - One of the good things about having your own guide to drive you around is that you can get away from the touristy places. The most beautiful temple I visited wasn't the biggest or most elaborate ones as detailed in the guide books, but one Nammie took me to that is off the beaten track. It was a outside of Jaipur in the middle of nowhere in some mountains, there were no other visitors just Nammie and I walking around this run down Buddhist temple. An amazingly eerie and spiritual place, well worth the journey.
Lows - the bad thing about having your own guide drive you around is that he became bit of a creep! Don't get me wrong we had a laugh...like playing cards whilst he was driving down the motorway!! But he had a habit of touching my knee...I wasn't quite sure at first whether I was just a handy place to wipe his hand after visiting the toilet (word of warning don't touch anyone's left hand in India, they wipe their bottoms with them - and not with paper). But then when I agreed to share a bottle of beer with him one evening when he was driving me back to my hotel and he did the whole yawning and putting his arm around the back of my seat thing...i suddenly clicked he was a male after all ( i know I'm naive)...so i made a sharp exit. Then when he rang me one night and asked if i wanted to play I finally had enough and gave him a swift response. (don't think he got the full english translation but he definitely got the message).
So after two weeks of avoiding creeps in the streets of India I had also lost my sanctuary of safety in the car...therefore the promise of a week laying on a beach in Thailand with my mate Daz was just too much to turn down...hence i cut my india trip short and jumped a flight to Bangkok.
I would go back to India as i don't think there is anywhere else quite like it and there is so much more to see, but definitely not on my own...and preferably with a big manly guy on my arm.
