The Pink City

At the City Palace (this is within the old city and different from the Amber Fort).
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Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and true to most capitals of the world is a bustling and energetic city. It particularly stands out in memory because the usual traffic melee has added single-humped camels, hogs, buffaloes and, you would never believe it, elephants! The first one I saw left me paralyzed in the back seat of the car.  Then excitement took over and it was all I had to do to keep from jumping up and down clapping my hands the whole while.

Only the old part of the city is 'pink', ie. most facades have been painted pink. It is not the same as in Johdpur where as you look down upon it you see a sea of blue, it's more like looking at what once used to be. The pink for the most part is faded and a lot of times so dirty it is hard to distinguish what the original most have looked like.

The area around the cinema and the golden archs where I had my Maharaja burger (now remember I was in my recuperating phase and thus my body was calling out for calorie loaded foods!)
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The first thing we did upon our arrival was go see another fort, the Amber Fort. Now I am not saying that they aren't fabulous or magnificent but after a while they begin to look alike. The big difference here was we got to ride an elephant to the top of the fort. Well it sounded a lot cooler to me too, but in reality it was a very bumpy and slow ride...and I loved every moment of it. I can't begin to imagine how people might have once hunted on them, sitting upon that hulk of a beast spearing down tigers and vanquishing your enemies...hmmm. Well you had better develop an innate sense of balance first, is all I can say.

Gate to the Old City...pink
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Went to visit India's most famous Bollywood cinema which was somewhat  reminiscent of a giant cupcake... Unfortunately all the tickets were sold out so we had to miss out on this joyous activity. Visited McDonald's and had a Maharajah chicken burger (remember the holy cow now....). It was quite spicy but quite tasty as well. They had some other masala (essentially just a hodge podge of Indian spices) menus and it was definitely very different from the standard McDee menu.

Don't recall this building now, but I believe it is a part of some royal space. It was looking out on to the main street as we were driving around the old city.
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As part of the tour our driver had to take us to see one of the company's factories, where of course they try to get you to buy something at overinflated prices. It was a somewhat interesting experience if you ignore the very determined sales pitch. We were taken to three different 'masters' each with different goods. The first was to see hand woven rugs. We got to see a couple in the process of being made. It may take up to 7 months for one carpet to be complete depending on the intricacy of the design. They were fabulous and the first time I saw a pure silk rug....it was absolutely luxurious and I found myself actually toying with the thought of throwing a grand on one of those (like that will actually ever occur!!) Thing with buying something that indulgent is that how can I ever allow myself to actually use a rug as such!!  I would make everyone walk around it or even worse put it away and only bring it out to show case once in a while. That would be a sad state of affairs, thus I will stick to IKEA where I can step all over my carpet and not go into a catatonic state when someone spills coffee all over it!

The Amber Fort
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Next stop was the garment section. Sigh..... the designs, the materials used, I could only drool. Trust me it was HARD to not buy anything. However, wait till we get to Bangkok, then I will unleash the shopping devil and spoil myself with 100% silk bed sheets and other paraphernalia!