Jaipur

Our overnight train trip was good. We played a couple of rounds of Uno with Terri, Anne and Marcus before retiring to our beds on the 3rd tier.

We arrived in Jaipur at 6am and headed off to the hotel in the dark. The streets were very quiet at that time of the morning once we were away from the station. We had a cup of coffee/ tea while we waited until it was late enough to order breakfast. After breakfast we set off to the Amber Fort which is 11km from the centre of Jaipur. We caught tuk-tuks to Jaleb Chowk where we were able to take photos of the Hawa Mahal or palace of the winds which is a pretty pink sandstone building with 953 small windows.

We then caught a local bus out to the Amber Fort. It is a very impressive fort and there were between 50 and 100 elephants taking tourists up to the entrance. We crossed their paths a few times as they zigzaged their way up. We had a very informative guide who explained about the courtyards one which had an impressive geometric garden.

We had great views from the top of the fort and could see the wall that surrounds the old city. We caught a public bus back into Jaipur and had a short orientation walk past the city palace and the observatory and through 2 bazaars before having lunch at LMB. After lunch we walked to the Central Museum in the Albert hall where we saw Metal art, pottery, miniature paintings, musical instruments, textiles and garments. We split from the group and headed back to the hotel. On the way David stopped and had is hair cut for the princely sum of 50 rupee ($1), they only wanted 40 but decided to leave a tip. We decided to walk back to our hotel using the dodgy map from the hotel and unfortunately got a little lost. We managed to hail a cyclo and he was able to find the hotel with a little help from some tuk tuk drivers.

We met up again at 7pm and headed out for dinner as Handi, a lovely restaurant on the main street. We walked back to the hotel and it took us 20 minutes.

1st December, we had breakfast then set off with the others to see the Jantar Mantar (meaning instrument calculation), it is an observatory. We hired a guide who explained each of the instruments some of which were sun dials for time and others for the day, week month etc and others for the astrological calculations. It was a very impressive site as it was built between 1728 and 1734 and the largest sundial is accurate to 2 seconds. 

They claim that they have the worlds largest sundial and it is very impressive, the left side being used during winter when the sun is in the Southern part of the sky and the right hand side when the sun is in the Northern part of the sky during summer.

We then set off to see the City Palace, part of which is still the residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur and his family. We walked through 3 courtyards one of which was the peacock courtyard which had 4 gates one for every season. We also visited the reception room, the armory and the audience hall that contains the worlds largest silver objects, two silver vessels, according to the Guinness book of world records.

  After the palace visit we climbed the Iswari Minar, a 7 story minaret that did not have steps but a ramp with ridges where you would expect a step. At the top we had great views over the city.

Most of the shops were closed today as they were protesting the government allowing foreign retail giants to open so it was an easy walk through the bazaar on our way back to the hotel. It was a shame about the strike as Catriona had planned to buy some emerald jewelry here but all the jeweler shops were closed. We ate lunch back at the hotel as the restaurants in town were closed too. We met up with everyone at 4pm to head off to the Bollywood movie at the famous Raj Mandir cinema, said to be the most beautiful in Asia, but because of the strike Badam could not buy the tickets. We arranged to meet again at 5.30pm and head off to the theatre in the hope they were open.  When we arrived they were open and Catriona lined up to buy the tickets as the line for females was shorter.

We got tickets in the general admission area for 80 rupee each. It was a fun night not only watching the movie but watching and listening to the crowds reaction. The crowd cheered as the curtains went up and also every time there was a close up of the lead actors. After the movie we had dinner at a restaurant close by then headed back to the hotel.