It's hard to take a photo from a moving elephant

When we arrived in Jaipur on Friday afternoon John asked "what have we come here to see?"

Jaipur is very busy and is Pradeep's least favourite city to drive in, he says people there don't know how to drive.

The pink city certainly has hidden charm if you don't look down. The Royal Orchid Central is clean and we have "hot and cold water as complimentaries and cupboard for clothes, complimentaries also".

On Saturday we looked around the City Palace and then the lake.

Later in the afternoon is elephant safari time. I hadn't realised we were riding them, I still live with the fear of nearly crushing Emma when dismounting a camel when she was 20 months old. However, an elephant is easier to mount from an elephant height platform.

After the safari we enjoyed a drink sat in front of basket fires lit with kerosene and cotton.

The safari ended with elephant polo which was very entertaining if not so fast paced as the horses.

Sunday - Sunday drivers are out (!) as we drive up to Amer Fort. Another fabulous construction with hundreds of tiny passageways and rooms.

Today we finally give in and go through the conveyor belt sales process to make some purchases, managing to fast track through jewellery and carpets.

For lunch we follow Deepa's recommendation of LMB - Laxmi Mishthan Bhander Restaurant, for a thali - Rajasthani Thaal 'a unique unforgettable lifetime experience'

Indeed it is, it's like a school dining hall, the room is jam packed and filled with chatter and Indian music. The thali is good, it's obvious why people are queuing in the shop for a table.

LMB is 100% vegetarian and the shop next door 100% sugar in different colours and shapes.

Yesterday we discovered it is hard to take a photo on a moving elephant. Today we learnt that tuk tuk's don't necessarily go as far as you want to. Against Pradeep's better judgement (obviously he couldn't see the point since he is there to drive us) we said after lunch we would return to our hotel via tuk tuk. In each city the tuk tuk is a different design and we decided we wanted to have a trip in each type.

We stopped half a dozen or so who declined our fare before one agreed. He took us on an interesting journey with all new sights, eventually stopping near a statue of Queen Victoria near Central Park.

We reviewed our hotel address and after some careful financial negotiation were safely delivered on Bani Road for the sum of 250 rupees.