Jaipur- Around and bizzare

We buzzed over to Craig’s hotel for Brunch that morning and I got a DVD burned from my camera memory card, the amount I have spent on batteries and discs on this trip has been mad!We decided that we would take our Rickshaw driver and get him to take us 10 km outside the city to a huge Palace that was used before the king moved the people and built Jaipur. Craig, Lilly, Dee and I squeezed into this hairdryer on wheels and buzzed out of town to the palace. Along the road are troops of monkeys, camels and elephants plodding along with there drivers fast asleep on top, all very cool and ‘Indian’ Along the way I got to have a bash at driving the Rickshaw which was a mad experience, I prefer Thailand's Tuk Tuks to these Auto rickshaws. We got to the palace and it was amazing. I am nearly positive it’s the palace used in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Movie but I will have to google.Its very impressive and is surrounded as far as you can see along the mountains by big walls and forts everywhere, would have been a real seat of power back in the old days. We spent a few hours wandering around the place and taking it all in. A very grand place indeed. Eventually we buzzed back into town and made arrangements with our driver to take us to 'Rajasthali' which is like Rajasthan Disneyland with dancers, food and all things traditional. It’s supposed to be very good.

That evening we hooked back up and raced out the 15km to this place. We were all choking driving out there as everyone uses Kerosene and diesel mix out here and it burns horribly, real thick black smoke. With sitting on top of the exhaust basically we all got a blast and were all choked. The air pollution on the main roads here is the ineradicably bad.
We got to Rajasthali and our cheeky Rickshaw driver asked us to pay for him in. We told him to get stuffed as he was wrecking our heads a bit and talking shit a lot.
We entered in and the place was really cool, camels running around, desert, fires, traditional music and dancing etc. We went for some food which was nice and traditional sitting in a desert tent on the floor and all that but the waiters were literally shoving food down our throats to get us to leave so the could get the next lot in. It was very weird and a bit much.
We finished dinner as it was starting to freak us out and wandered around. There was some puppet shows etc but we found a show, which had a dog blanching on a load of buckets. He was clearly terrified of the owner while doing this. The he got the dog to jump through a hoop which he set on fire. The dog was shitting himself at this stage and he jumped eventually after some threats. Thee dog jumped awkwardly and the burning hoop came down on to of him. He freaked and it was pretty horrible to watch. The owner gave the poor hound a boot as he cowered whining. And there were groups of people watching this, families. India again.
After this display we say a child climb in a 20ft pole and spin around on top which was bizarre, I though he would be speared by it. We also say a head on a stick, very odd and a woman with 10 ft or pots balancing on here head as she danced. Strange to the cruel to the silly it seems.
We went of to a maze and had a joint. After than we had an Elephant ride which I did I not really did g s the elephant seemed really bored. We went on a Camel also which was cool, I like camels :)

After all this excitement we buzzed back to the hotel and retired to sleep to dream of burning dogs and spinning children...