The Hotel Karni Niwas is a tidy place but a tad impersonal. Our room is one of several off a long first floor terrace which overlooks a pleasant garden that none seems to use and which is spoilt only by an obligatory pile of rubbish in one corner – builders’ rubble fortunately; only an eyesore and not a health hazard. There is no dining room, but amazingly there is room service and breakfast – and dinner too if you want it – is served on the terrace outside our room. Importantly it’s quiet, a big plus in this country. There is even hot water, but it’s difficult to distinguish it from the cold, the temperature of both is more or less the same. But who needs hot water in this heat? There are some monkeys on a flat roof opposite finding the flies just as irritating as we do.
We go for a walk to orientate ourselves with the intention of visiting the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
Pink City. What a mistake! We manage to get completely lost – no street signs make map reading a nightmare. India cities are not for exploring on foot; pavements exist not for walking on, but for sleeping, sitting and parking and using as a toilet. Any pavement that is available for walking on is usually broken, filthy or covered in rubbish or piles of rubble. Indian is definitely best experienced from inside a rickshaw or even better, an air conditioned car.
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