10:00am - Singapore

Hey everyone, hope you are all well!!

Just arrived in Singapore this morning with Camilla and we're still getting over the shock of 1) how clean things are compared to India 2) the fact that you can walk about without being leered at 3) how nice people are 4) how much it DOESN'T smell... everywhere like India! Don't get me wrong, I was a bit sad about leaving India but at the same time it's so nice to be somewhere civilised again where you're not hassled constantly!

Well since my last email, Scott and I headed up north from Mumbai. That was sort of an adventure in itself... Our train from Mumbai to Jaipur left at about 18:50, but we didn't arrive at the station until about 7pm and ended up having to run after our *moving* train and jump onto the 1st available compartment. It just so happened to be the 'ladies only' carriage so consequently Scott was accompanied by a machine-gun-clad guard until we could change compartments at the next station. We ended up having to make a mad dash down the train station -the train stopped for about 1minute - and jumping on again. At least this time we were on the right section of the train, so we had to wade our way through the train (including the kitchen carriage... which completely put us off accepting any train food!). We got to Jaipur in the end though and were really impressed with how pretty it was there.

Jaipur is known as the pink-city, and it's really spectacular. Although on our 1st day there we had a bit of a bad experience. We headed into the old-city, and unfortunately it was at the same time as a massive Muslim-festival... meaning there was a crowd of about 10,000 teenage boys and men. So we were just walking along getting some nice pics, when we started getting followed. After a while I was grabbed by about 20 guys, which lead to me being pushed against a barrier while about 100 guys crushed in to grab me. It was really frightening actually; they were all grabbing me and crushing me... and encouraging more men to join in. Scott was trying to fight them off but there was so many that he couldn't really fight them all off. I was begining to panic a lot, as they were spraying things into my eyes and face. Then after like 5 minutes, a "police" guard came over and started beating the sh*t out of some of the guys with a baton. The crowd kind of disperesed but after the guard moved away, they started to crowd again... so we had to find some more guards to get us of the place!! it was really awful and Scott got his walet stolen amidst all the crowd. Really not a good start to Jaipur!

The next day however, was brilliant. We headed up to Amber Fort, which has a massive palace sitting on it. We got an elephant ride up to the top that was REALLY fun (we named our elephant Stampy!) and then got a tour of the palace and some more temples. They were all very beautiful and because they were made of mostly marble, were preserved really well for being about 400 years old. We then headed to the water palace, which is this spectacular palace in the middle of a lake. Then the next day we headed to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal). It was quite nice there actually, although it has a bad reputation. We went inside the Taj Mahal and it was really beautiful.... and got some amazing pics (which I'll try to send soon!!). Then we went to the Agra fort, which was cool and then we headed to a really good spot behind the Taj Mahal to watch it during Sunset, which was really gorgeous!!

We couldn't believe how cold the north of India was compared to the South! I was absolutely freezing most of the time... which was a shock! It was really beautiful though and I wish I could've spent more time there!

Yesterday Scott and I headed to Delhi on the train and I headed to the airport, whereas he has another few days before he flys out so he's staying in Delhi before flying back home to Sydney! Meeting Camilla at the airport in Delhi was fun though as we had a lot to catch up on! And singapore seems like it's going to be great... so we're a bit annoyed we're only here for 2 & 1/2 days!!

---kirsty
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