The Pink City

Jaipur street scene (bit of the pink city in the background)
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Our last night train across India brought us from Jaisalmer to the city of Jaipur, we arrived at 05:30 in the morning, too early to check-in at the hotel Arya Niwas where we'd booked a room so we had to sit out on the front terrace waiting for sunrise and the dining hall to open at 06:30.

Initially we weren't too impressed but after a visit to the Jaipur Observatory, oh and a jewellers, we've changed our impression.  The Observatory was absolutely amazing (Astrid - you would love it!!) the instruments were unbelievable, Samantra Yantra, the king of all instruments, is a giant sundial accurate to within 2 seconds. The arc is tilted exactly 27 degrees so that it always directly faces the sun and the hand (?) points due north casting its shadow on the westside of the arc in the morning and to the east in the afternoon.  Inverted spheres track the movement of the sun across the sky throughout the day...... really impressive.

Overtake quickly - the exhaust fumes are deadly
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And then the trip to the jewellers where I bought a bag of semi-precious stones; turquoise, moonstone and agate I want to use on my boxes, oh and Penny bought something as well..............