Saturday, August 21, 2009 - Jaipur, Rajastan

Day 8:
The six us of headed out early to make the most of our fast paced trip as the Jal Mahal Water Palace glistened in the distance. The main destination was the Amber fort. The hike up the fort is about 10 minutes... however, we chose to head up by elephant in the sweltering heat. The view was spectacular, with an immense courtyard, gardens, and green hills and valleys along with "The Great Wall of India" as dubbed by Chantelle. We explored the bathhouse, bat cave, and even meditated in a hindu temple.

Next we headed to the Shri Jagat Siromani Temple decorated with elephants and different god and goddesses. It was nice to meditate here and Meena showed us to ring the bell in the altar area and then a priest applied the red bindi.

Rajastan is quite different from Delhi as the streets are filled not only with pedestrians, bikes, cars, etc., but also camels, goats, and many many cows. There are cows everywhere and they don't move for anything. It's incredible to see the coexistence of all of these animals and transportation system mingling about.

Laura and I forged on to see the City Palace. She is more the historian, but I kept her paced at this site since I am sometimes like a kid with ADD... I just like to see the important stuff and not read about it (especially in the intense heat). But there was a beautiful courtyard which I now read represented the 4 seasons and pictures of the Maharajas.

In the evening we headed to the Choki Dhani carnival so see dancers, magicians, and you could even take a camel ride for 30 cents! We each met with a psychic (for only 10 rupees) who only spoke hindi and used a parrot to choose our fortune and Meena translated for the group. We really enjoyed our time here, but headed back to the hotel to get a few hours sleep for our trip to Agra.