The Night Train

1200 kms in 14 hours overnight, who could resist such an offer! Of course the night train prices were a lot more reasonable than an inland flight would have been, so the decision was a nobrainer.
As the train was crossing the main malaria region we decided to take an air conditioned train, apparently something mosquitos don't like, but we chose the lowest class even here. It was still a better than Budapest - Warszawa overnight was a couple of years ago and of course cheaper as well. On this train they serve food regularly, where by "food" I mean stuff that would like to be airplane food when it grows up, an "regularly" means they wake you up when it's time for chowder. You also get free bottled water, tea and English language papers.
As for company we got a nice couple and their 3-4 year old daughter who just started to learn English numbers, they were very friendly and helpful with us and our tourist-questions (when do we eat? When do we sleep? When will they check our tickets? Etc.) The other 2 passengers were high school age 2 boys, who switched one of their berths with us to be near the electric outlet when the beds are down. They were cunning enough to keep the better place when the beds were folded down and we polite Westerners didn't start to argue, of course.
The scenery during the ride was changing very frequently with only the fog /smog being constant. We crossed very European forests and scrublands, dried out riverbeds and an occasional mountain in the distance. The only sign of India outside were the goats and a palm tree every now and then. Getting to Jaipur was easy compared to dodging the tuktuk drivers hunting tourists at the station - one of them even followed us to the hotel which was walking distance and managed to convince us to hire him for the next day :) sure, we may have been loosers with haggling for the price but he spoke good enough English and in general proved to be a pretty good guide. So, hotel found we got our nice room with view on the nearby construction grounds and of course double bed, typical for Indian hotels. Bathroom was OK and the whole thing had a nice garden with statues and an occasional peacock flying in. Oh, and our door was locked with a pretty medieval looking bolt and guarded by a huge plush tiger on the outside :)
After a short break we wandered out to find a SIM card (success, and the first clean store!) and to visit one of the nearby forts. On the road a jeweller stopped us and invited us in to show his store and as it turned out to sell stuff (yes we are this inexperienced :)). He was pretty friendly and explained everything so even with his business side taking control this detour was worth it. For example this was my first time being barefoot in a jewellery store :) he also caught a tuktuk for us to get to a local restaurant which was the scariest looking (thus far) but served meat for good prices. :) The rickshaw broke down half way back to the hotel but the driver fixed it quickly enough not to get so uncomfortable in the dark at the side of a roundabout :)
Right after that we called it a day to prepare with some sleep for the first pretty Indian city, which no one will believe as I still can't post pictures :)