After we had settled down, we started to explore the city, which is also called the Pink City. It is obviously named after its old quarter, which is surrounded by a beautiful pink coloured city wall made out of pink sand stone and the main street bazaar buildings are in the same colour as well. On our stroll we found a tandoori place by chance, which we knew was highly recommended on the internet as good street food. Without any real food until then, we only had some rusks and bananas on the train, we welcomed the possibility to have some proper Indian street food. The place only consisted of a front open kitchen including charcoal grill and a basic eating room with shabby plastic chairs and tables. The whole area outside was full of car and motor scooter repair shops, which created a truly hard working atmosphere. All good signs for authentic and honest local food! We ordered some veggy curry, tandoori chicken skewer and butter roti, which is an Indian flat bread. It took some time, as they made everything fresh, but it was so worth it. Especially the fresh backed roti bread was incredibly good. Together with the charcoal roasted chicken and the well flavoured curries it was a feast.

It became our favourite place to eat and during our stay we went there everyday for an early lunch and dinner to eat our way through the menu. Well fed we continued our tour. After getting lost in side streets for a couple of times, we finally reached one of the impressive gates leading into the old quarter. A swarm of rickshaws and pedestrians was noisily squeezing through it. We jumped into the moving crowd and floated into the old quarter. Inside the main street, buildings were packed with little shops overflowing with all kind of goods. Constantly surrounded by traders, who invited us into their shops we slowly made our way through the crowd. Somehow we escaped into a Hindu temple on the street. The priest on duty was a friendly man, who invited us to the roof to catch a view on Jaipur. We got some useful tips what to see during our visit and what was going on in Jaipur. He told us that the governmemt is building a metro that will also have some stations in the old city. He said that many locals are concerned, as they are not sure the old buildings might suffer or even get damaged in the long term with building work underground taking place.

It was actually nice to see that locals here really care about their heritage. We noticed that also while walking through the old city and saw lots of painting work going on and people sweeping the entrance to their shops. It was refreshing to see Indians care about their environment compared to Mumbai, where you get the feeling no one cares or feels responsible. He and his wife were also running a little hand craft shop. We could not resist to buy our first little souvenir since we started our journey, a hand-woven turquoise pillow cover Natalie fell in love with. With this purchase in our bags and the sun starting to set, we walked back to our guesthouse. The next day we made a trip to the famous Amber Fort Palace, 7 km outside of Jaipur. It is beautifully located in the mountains and the number one sight in the area.

Our guesthouse manager was very kind to tell us how to get there by bus, as we wanted to experience the real local transport. Tourists usually would go there by rickshaw. To get on a bus in Jaipur was far more adventurous than what we are used to from Germany. It was even more challenging for us, as there were no bus signs or schedules around. To get on the right bus meant first of all walking along the main road and looking out for buses. Mostly they make their way slowly through the dense traffic in the middle of the street surrounded by wild honking scooters, cars, rickshaws and cows. So once we had spotted a potential bus candidate, I had to zigzag through the fast moving traffic to jump onto the slow moving bus and tell the ticket boy or driver where we wanted to go to find out if this was our bus. The first 6 buses I tried did not go in our direction and I had to jump off again, trying to make my way back through the wild traffic. Finally the 7th bus was the right one and Natalie jumped on. The mini bus was not big and already completely packed with around 30 people. We squeezed ourselves in and I still have no clue how it actually worked out. After a while the bus was less crowded and we could see how the Indians were looking at us, still in disbelieve what we were doing on their bus. After that experience the hurdle was taken and we improved our bus riding skills by using the Jaipur buses regularly.

When we reached the Amber Fort Palace, the view was just stunning. Perfectly situated on a mountain, it is widly surrounded by a massiv wall, which almost looked like a small version of the Chinese wall. The palace itself was a mixture of a strong fortress from outside and a fairy tale palace from inside. Natalie and me spent a couple of hours there discovering beautiful courtyards, endless rooms, dead ends and even a connecting tunnel to the nearby Jagar Fort. It was a lot to take in and after a few hours we went to sit down on a bench outside in the shade. We hadn’t sat there long and a group of kids came up to us, asking if they can have a picture with us. We had been asked that question many times already throughout India, usually by young adults though. This time it felt like a photo session, as first they wanted to have a group picture, then every kid wanted a picture on their own with us and then some more group photos. With these cute kids it was a lot of fun though and in the end, we asked for a group picture for our photo album.

Back in our guesthouse, we discovered that Ludo (Mensch Ärger dich nicht) is also played in India. The manager invited me to play a round with his staff. The rules are quite similar to those in Germany. So it was actually easy to join their game. Nevertheless I lost the game, but it was fun to play with them. Our next day was reserved for some shopping on the bazaars in the old quarter in Jaipur. After a good late breakfast at our favourite tandoori food place, we walked to the old city again. This time taking a different route through the newer part of the city, which looks like any other city part on the way to a western city part. McDonald’s is usually the first to conquer the city and other big names are not far away. Once we reached the gates again, we threw ourselves into the street market to buy Natalie a pair of Indian style sandals and blouse. We tried our best and bargained hard. After a couple of shops, we felt confident about the price, which in some cases varied by 100 % from the first offer. She looks absolutely beautiful in her Indian dress!

After our successful shopping tour, we had a great coffee in the well-known Indian Coffee House. It was really interesting to see that coffee in India is clearly something the middle and upper class would drink. The coffee is cheap in general, but expensive compared to the tea you get everywhere on the streets. The place was also mostly visited by men, who looked like they were having their business chats in there. In the late afternoon we made our way to the eastern end of the city to the so-called Monkey Temple, which overlooks the whole city from the eastern mountain range. It got its name from all the monkeys living up there and there really were a lot. The end of the day and also the end of our 3 days in Jaipur could not have ended better than with a fantastic sunset view over this bustling and lovely city with monkeys running around everywhere. The next morning, we got up early again to catch our train to Agra to see the majestic Taj Mahal.

When we disembarked the train two days ago, we were welcomed by a small and almost tidy train station. There were only four platforms and ours was the only train. Our guesthouse sent us a rikshaw to pick us up free of charge. During the ride our driver offered us his guiding services for the next day. We were reminded once again that nothing is really free of charge. Nevertheless we booked him for the next day, as we would have only one full day to see the main highlights around the town and he seemed to be friendly and reliable. When we arrived at our guesthouse, we finally felt we arrived in the India we came to see.

Our guesthouse was run by a lovely family and had all the charm you would expect from a privately run Indian place. The house was colourful and the rooms were clean, tidy and decorated with lots of little Indian style details. It was located in a non touristic neighbourhood at the top of a hill with a rooftop terrace, which gave us a beautiful view over Udaipur. We both instantly felt at home. Before we did anything else, we sat down on the rooftop terrace to enjoy a Mango Lassi. It was so nice and quiet up there and the view was fantastic. We could have easily stayed there for several days and just read some books, but we only had 1 1/2 days in this city.

So equipped with a handwritten map of our hosts, we started to discover Udaipur in the late afternoon: Narrow lanes winding through old Indian houses standing back to back. The front entrances were fully packed with local shops and little businesses. Honking scooters and only a car now and then trying to make their way past pedestrians and sometimes cows. The only British colonial building in town is a clock tower. From there we should have found our way to the lake at the city easily, but we did not. While we stood there a bit lost in front of one of the old Hindu temples, we were approached by a local in fluent German. If we had heard about the big royal wedding on the lakes island, he asked us. He would lead us to the lake and assured us he is just a nice citizen of Udaipur without any intention to charge us for guiding or sell us something.

Once we had reached the lake shore, he told us that his little business is just a few steps from there. His grandmother crafts cashmere scarfs that are exhibited in Germany and other European countries. In fact, the next day they will leave the city to fly to Germany for another exhibition. He would like to show us the special scarf and practise his German by sharing the secrets of weaving with us. Only 5 min later each of us had a cashmere scarf around our necks. The story which was told was to fantastic to be true. His 94 year old grandma still weaves all the scarfs. They both constantly travel to Europe to have exhibitions at the Louvre in Paris and other big cities. He would sell his scarfs there for 650 Euro. The next day he would catch a Lufthansa flight with his grandma to Berlin for the next exhibition. He really wants to do us a favor and would leave us the scarfs for an incredible price, only 48 Euro each. As quickly as we were brought inside his shop, as quickly he had switched of the air condition and the lights in his shop and showed us the door, when we told him we could not accept his generous offer :). Although we had invested some time, it was actually fun to hear his sales story. He really had made his homework and served us a perfectly customized story, which should make us feel comfortable and intrigued because of the relation to our German background.

It was time to escape from the touristy streets around the lake. So we went up to one of the rooftop bars. The place we chose was right at the lake. The view from above was stunning. We could see the sun disappearing behind the far mountain range. The lake, the palace and the surrounding city laid peacefully and quiet around us, perfectly enlighted by golden sunlight. Birds were flying over our heads. The whole atmosphere was just magic. It was as we could look through a time window to catch a glimpse of the old India. The next morning started with a good breakfast on the rooftop cafe of our guesthouse. I had made Natalie her morning coffee and we had banana pancake and omelette. Our rikshaw driver Jamil picked us up at 10 am. We both were excited to see more of Udaipur.

After a first stop at the morning market, where mostly fresh vegetables and handcrafted baskets were sold, we went to the royal cemetery. A place where all Maharadschas of the Mewar dynasty are buried since centuries. Each tomb was like a little temple in various sizes. Taking pictures was not permitted, the sign next to the entrance said. But the guard on duty there said for 20 Rupies he will give us his special allowence :). Besides some monkeys resting in the shady tomb temples, we were on our own. It was so quiet we still couldn’t believe that after noisy Mumbai.

The next sight we visited was the monument of Maharadscha Pratap, who still is the number one hero in that region. He fought succesfully over 25 years against invading neighbouring kingdoms. The whole area is very nicely located uphill next to the second main lake of Udaipur. We rested there for some time under a shady tree and enjoyed the view over the lake and city. The third place on our tour was the historic Royal Princesss Garden, which once was build of one of the Maharadschas for his daughter. Until today it is a beautiful garden, which is really well maintained. A cool brise from the countless fountains makes you want to stay there over the hot day. Shady benches under old trees are inviting you to have a seat.

And that seems to be what lot of locals do here to escape the city buzz. Indian visitors and locals made themself comfortable on the greens and walkways to have a picnic or even a nap. Actually a perfect place for that or just to read a book and spend some time relaxing. The highlight of our tour was our last sight: the City Palace. One of the few palaces in India, which strictly followed Indian architecture. It was again not allowed to take pictures, unless you pay a fee. This time the fee was really expensive, so we decided not to take pictures from inside. As we walked through the rich decorated rooms, stairways and chambers we really could imagine how the Maharadschas reigned over old India in former days. The whole palace felt like it was taken out of an Indian fairy tale.

After 2 hours we left through the main gate, both of us flashed and overloaded with impressions. It was time to recover and recharge our batteries and we knew just the perfect place for that. How could our day end better than with a sunset dinner on our prefered roof top restaurant? An Indian dream with potato spinach and curry and a beautiful peaceful sunset. As we walked home through the alleys, we could see that the city is getting ready for the Indian New Year festival. First decorations had been put up. What a shame that we wouldn’t be there for that. The next morning we would leave for Jaipur, our next destination. After our rugged start in Mumbai, Udaipur was a peaceful retreat, more like we had imagined India to be.

Mumbai. Well, for almost a day we thought Mumbai i.e India wouldn’t happen at all. When we wanted to check-in to our flight in Bangkok on Sunday, we found out that the flight didn’t exist. We tried to call SriLankan airlines without luck and our travel agency in Germany was closed as it was Sunday. So we just went to the airport the next day, hoping we can sort it there, as we had valid e-tickets we had paid for. However, when we got there, we found out that SriLankan had closed their ticket office at the airport and there was no other staff around that could help us. We had to wait until the afternoon, when the travel agency in Germany would open their office. So 4 hours before our supposed scheduled flight, I am on the phone to them and they don’t know what the problem is, as in their system the flight is confirmed as well. It takes another 2 hours to find out that SriLankan had cancelled the flight, but forgotten to update the system :), and for our agency to get a full refund and book us on a different flight that went to Mumbai directly that evening. Luckily, all turned out well and we landed in Mumbai Monday after midnight.

Every traveler we have met so far on our journey, and who has been to India, said it will be a big culture shock and that you usually need 3 weeks to get over it to start seeing only the real beauty and magic in this country. If you stay there less than 3 weeks, you will probably leave the country not wanting to return. Well, we only have 2 weeks, but we are hoping to get over the difficult time quicker with all the knowledge we have now and some mental preparation for it. Having done SE Asia first will hopefully help a bit as well, or so I thought…. It is a land of extremes, they said. A country where beauty and ugliness, kindness and cruelty, wealth and poverty, and the most heavenly and most disgusting smell and sight lies right next to each other. After having traveled through parts of Asia who can partly be described like that, you wonder how much worse it can get. Shortly after landing in Mumbai, we would learn that lesson already. It is a difficult thing to image, unless you have seen it for yourself and the pictures aren’t able to capture the extend of it. Out of respect, we won’t take pictures of the poorliest people anyway, so you have to try and follow us based on descriptions and the images we did take.

We landed in Mumbai’s newly renowated airport, which is so clean and spaceious and shiny you feel like you enter a land of pure wealth and prosperity. Everything is incredibly organized and works smoothly. It is 1:00 am in the morning and we book a taxi to our hotel. AC or Non-AC we get asked. A normal taxi without air-conditioning please. We get into a taxi that looks like a Fiat Panda and sure enough, after having packed our backpacks and us inside, there is no space for anything else. The driver takes off and once we get out of the airport area, the sound of Mumbai hits us like a big wave: Honking horns like you have never heard it before. It feels like this is a honking competition and people are just honking for the fun of it, even if there is no need. Having said this, traffic rules do not exists and even just sitting in a car seems suicidal. Now I have been in many crazy traffic cities, even driven a car myself in Mexico City, but this is just another different level all together. Mathias asks the driver if he can put Indian music on and he puts it on loud. In fact so loud, you cannot hear the honking horns anymore. It creates the perfect atmosphere for our trip through this busy city though and we feel transported into a Bollywood movie, driving down the highway and streets of buzzling Mumbai at night. Until we get off the highway and reality hits us in the face once again. The sight of a big street slum community makes me go from excited to incredibly shocked and sad at the same time. People, women with kids and babies are lying right on the main road, not even on a sidewalk, one after each other, without anything to sleep on, sometimes half naked, sleeping on the concrete while thousands of cars are speeding past them. I have seen poverty in many countries from Asia to South America and Africa, but this is again another extreme that is incredibly difficult to get my head around, no matter how good I think I prepared myself for these sights.

When we get to our hotel, we first drive past it, as the houses look like rundown places at the brink of collapsing. Then instead of a sign, I see a big poster with our hotel name on it and signal to the driver that this it it. Even he looks very sceptical, but we walk around the corner and there is our entrance. We go inside and to our relief it actually is very nice and clean inside and we are happy with our room. Exhausted from a long journey and the first impressions, we go to bed.

Our hotel is close to a train station, so the next day we avoid the hassle with the rickshaw drivers by taking the train to the old part of the city around the Gateway of India. It is only 2 stops, but the receptionists tells us to get a 1st class ticket, as the 2nd class is too crowded ‚for us‘, which I suppose in his words means travelers. So we do, as it is incredibly cheap anyway, 50ct per person. We get on the train and realise that the 1st class is actually the same as the 2nd class, except that you pay more and thus less people are in there. The second class doesn’t look crowded though, so we continue riding 2nd class for the rest of the 3 days in Mumbai.

It is actually fun. You learn to jump off and on a still driving train and during the whole trip the doors are always open and you can see that the locals love to stick their head out during the journey to enjoy the wind. It is all pretty chilled actually. Everything changes during rush hour time though. The train, including 1st class, gets packed to the brink of explosion. A bit similar to rush hour on the London Underground, except that the doors are open all the time, people are hanging half out of the train and when the train gets close to a station people jump off and a whole crowd is jumping on, fighting its way inside to get one of the few seats, and all that before the train has even stopped! Now we of course did not join in that madness, but waited until the train had stopped and then people would always be kind enough to make some space for us to stand. One morning, we read in the newspaper that 2 teenagers have been killed by falling out of the train and we can understand completely now how that could happen.

Before we do anything else, we go to the central train station to buy our train tickets for the rest of the trip. Another recommendation, as buying tickets otherwise becomes a nightmare, or let’s better say, getting a ticket. As the trains are always full, people just buy train tickets in advance for trains they do not even know they might take. As you get a full refund the day before when returning the ticket, this has become the working system in India for buying tickets. So I am not surprised, when we buy our overnight train ticket and get told we are on the waiting list, the seat reservation will be confirmed on the day. Luckily, the other 3 tickets all have confirmed seats. We go outside and now finally take a look at the building itself, which is actually one of the main historic sights in Mumbai. With a mix of Victorian, Hindu and Islamic styles it is on the Unesco World Heritage list. And here is where we learn our next India lesson. Sights can look beautiful and impressive from further away, but when you get closer it is a shame to see how this beautiful sight gets ruined by piles of rubish, dirt and broken or damaged building parts. It feels like the word ‚maintenance‘ does not exist in the Indian language.

We start our discovery tour, visit the Gateway of India and stroll through the streets passed bazaars and more beautiful, but old run-down sights. We stop at a cafe to try some Indian food and keep wandering around. What sounds like a pretty relaxed sighting afternoon, is actually incredibly exhausting. The minute you go out of your hotel room the honking concert of the cars is present all the time, not stopping for a single second, no matter where you are. The traffic is so bad and the driving so relentless, that you constantly have to take care not to get run-over. Your nose is being exposed to an extreme palette of smells from delicious to disgusting all the time. You are on your guard and vary of locals trying to sell you something or starring at you if you are a Western woman (it seems to me at least). Basically, all your senses are on full alert non-stop, while being bombarded with an immense amount of new impressions at the same time. Indonesia was a walk in the park compared to that. Throughout all that you are hot and sweaty, walking from one shady place to another. No wonder we have a headache at the end of the day and feel totally exhausted.

But being us, we cannot resist to try some street food before going home :). Close to our station, we find a small street market which seems to be the place for locals to meet up to have some dinner. So we go there and after a short consideration, whether or not to risk having stomach problems the next day at the sight of all the rubish and dirt lying around again everywhere, we decide it is simply too tempting. So we try several small things from the stalls, which are all delicious, and end our dinner like the locals with a cup of hot Masala tea. Back at the hotel, a cold shower feels like a rebirth! Clean and tired we go to bed and I can still here the honking in my head. Will this ever go away?

The next morning, we wake up to thundering rain and wonder if we can go discover the city at all that day. After 2 hours or so it stopps though and we decide to go see some of the big bazaars and walk along the waterfront promenade in the afternoon, which is supposed to be a bit quieter. When we leave the hotel room, it feels like we are stepping out of a bubble into the real loud India again. We take the train again, this time 2nd class and make our way to the bazaars. Somehow I have this romantic image of an old colourful Indian bazaar in my head, but when we get there it is maybe not surprising yet a bit disappointing to see that the things you get on the bazaar are mainly plastic toys and houseware, and cheap clothing with Starbucks or Disney on it. At least there are some stalls full of fruits and spices around and we buy a pack of the special Masala tea spice to make it at home.

We have lunch in a restaurant that serves ‚thali‘, an all you can eat Indian lunch. When we go inside, it feels again like you are going through a magic door that shuts out the noise and dirt of the city while you are entering a little quiet oasis. The manager of the place must have seen in our faces that we never had thali before. He comes over and explains to us that there is no menu. Instead waiters will come and start serving small portions of different food in 4 courses and you just try. They start with starters, then small veggie curries and chutney with Indian bread, then rice and sweet deserts that you start eating during the courses already to balance the spicy dishes. All the time you can ask for more of the dish you liked. All is accompanied by a spiced fresh buttermilk drink that also neutralises the spicy dishes and helps digestion. We loved it, as you can probably imagine. Especially the mix of sweet and spicy is so addictive, you could roll us out of the restaurant in the end.

After that we decide to walk through he city to walk along the seaside promenade and have a look at what is considered Mumbai favourite beach: Girgaum Chowpatty. It is a longer walk from where we are than we anticipated and we are quite exhausted again when we get to the beach. The view as we approach the promenade is actually really nice. You get a good view of the skyline with a beach stretching along before it. We see lots of locals sitting down on the wall along the promenade and we go and do the same, for 1 minute. Then our buttoms are so hot it feels like they would burn if we sit there longer. How do the locals manage to sit on these stones, heated up by the afternoon sun to extreme temperatures?! As we look over the wall onto the beach, we can then see piles of waste and dirt everywhere again. And as we continue onto to the main beach area, it is the same there. The beach is full of rubish,  but people are still sitting there and swimming in a dirty sea. It makes you wonder, if locals here even still see all that, or if they completely ignore all the smell and dirt by now. Well, for us it is definitely not a sight we want to stay longer and we decide to go back to the hotel early, as we are totally exhausted again. At the exit of the beach, we see a sign from the government warning citizens that leaving rubish in public places will be fined. How ironic is that?!

For the third and last day in Mumbai, we decide to go and have a look at the ‚better‘ areas of town, where the upper class supposedly lives.  Not only does Mumbai host the rich and famous of the Bollywood industry, but it is also the economical capital of India and thus the home to many international company offices and their better off employees. One of the areas is called Juhu and also has a beach. So we go there to see how that compares to the day before. We take the train again, get off the station and follow the signs. We are suprised to be walking on a foot bridge that takes you over lots of poor streets for at least 10 minutes before it finally ends. We then find ourselves facing a main road with lots of traffic and a smaller parallel side streets with some stalls on, both leading to the beach as it seems. We take the side street to avoid the traffic. After a few meteres we start wondering about the poor state of the street, houses and people, as we thought this is a nicer area. After a few more meters we realize we walked into a slum, when Mathias reads a sign about it. Now I know why people are starring at us, probably wondering what we are doing on their street. We feel terrible bad, almost like intruders, as we do not want to be tourists who think poverty is a tourist attraction. We decide to take the next possible street out of it, but it feels like this street doesn’t come for ages.

Finally it is there and we are almost at the beach. The last few meters to the beach and the beach itself almost look clean compared to the day before, but it is certainly not clean in Western standards. There is still some rubish here and there, but it is obvious that the city is investing money to clean this area up. We continue walking around with the aim to find a restaurant that we read about. Some streets are really nice and beautiful and we walk past modern malls, Western food chains and modern high rises, but again the extreme opposite is never far away and can be found just around the next corner.

We finally find the restaurant and have some nice South Indian lunch. Afterwards we make our way back to the hotel to get our backpacks and go to the train station to catch our overnight train to Udaipur. Just when we thougt we have seen enough and cannot take in anymore, the journey back becomes more difficult than we could have imagined. Not only do we find ourselves in the middle of rush hour with people storming into the trains like crazy, but during the journey we pass a man full of bubbles and lumps on his body (google bubbleman and you see what we saw) and another man throwing up blood on the sidewalk, he probably had tuberculoses. And later at the main train station where we are waiting for our overnight train, we see a dead body being transported away.

This city really shocked us in so many ways, we feel like we got a crash course of India in just 3 days. We are happy to embark our train when it arrives, full of hope that the next place will be less intense.