A Fire Breather, An Elephant Ride, and a Snake Charmer

Our drive from Agra was fairly boring.  I spent my morning reading which became my norm while in the car.  Shortly after crossing over the boarder into the state/province of Rajasthan we reached our first stop of the day a national park and bird sanctuary called Bharatpur.  Dinesh dropped us off and we paid our entrance tickets and got a rickshaw and naturalist guide.  Our little group headed out into the park with the guide giving us the skinny on the wildlife found this time of year.  While rumbling around we saw a python (no, I sure as heck didn't get to close to that thing), some owls and even some baby owls that were soooo cute, a kingfisher some deer and antelope.  It was fun but there was not a lot to see in terms of wildlife.  The naturalist informed us they were having an issue with water as one of the big rivers that flooded this area making it a wetland had been dammed and they were no longer getting enough water to maintain the wetland.  Due to this they had lost the migration of many of the birds and animals they used to get in the park.  Which is really such a shame.  After a couple of hours of wandering around the park we left and paid the naturalist and rickshaw guy.

We jumped back in the car and ate our packed lunches which the hotel provided for us.  I went back to my book and read until we started the climb into Jaipur.  I didn't realize before that Jaipur a city built in the desert mountains.  I spent the last little bit of the ride looking out the window and admiring the scenes.  We arrived at our hotel in Jaipur and checked in.  We went up and cleaned up a bit and changed clothes then headed back out to go to the Chowki Dani dinner.  Rajasthan is famous for it's ethnic desert people and amazing forts and palaces.  So the Chowki Dani dinner is a fair almost of traditional Rajasthani stuff.  We both thought the dinner would be inside so all I brought to wear was my long sleeve shirt and pashmina.  Of course when we arrived we found out that the entire thing is held outside.  Oh well.

It was really just like an open air fair and our first stop was food.  We headed to the food area and sat down crossed legged at little tiny tables.  We were served local dishes which happened to be on the spicy side (a good thing I like spicy food).  During the meal the waiter guys put a turban on my head so we could get pictures.  After the dinner we walked around and I  got henna on my hands, got my fortune read, dressed up in a traditional Rajasthani outfit and had my picture taken.  We walked around and watched woman dancing with stacks of pots on there heads.  Like 8 or 10 pots balancing on top of there heads while they danced and then would stand and stamp on various things including beds of nails, swords/knives, cups.  It is totally nuts to see the stuff they were doing.  We also saw girls dancing without the pots and doing nutty contortionist type things like picking up bills with their eyelashes while doing a back bend.  It was freakish and I got loads of pictures.  But my favorite part even more so then all the dancing was the fire breather.  That was soooooo cool to see and I got some amazing pictures.

After our rounds to all the entertainment stops we toured the booths selling everything from chapals (sandals and shoes) to puppets to jewelry and bangles.  We passed on the shopping and after a couple of hours were freezing out bums off so we left.  On the ride home we were discussing out jackets only to realize that we had forgotten them in our hotel in Agra.  Dinesh immediately called the hotel and they were able to get our jackets and agreed to mail them to Jodhpur where we could pick them up in a couple of days.  In all my travels on this trip so far it was the first time I forgot something.  Lucky for us it could be fixed.  Once back at the hotel we both crashed out.  I'm still a little whipped from my migraine the day before so I had the sack early.

The next morning we were up and dressed early.  Dinesh picked us up at 8:15 and on the way we picked up our guide for the day, yet another Sharma.  We drive straight to the Amber Fort and stopped briefly on the side of the road and got some pictures of it from below then continued on.  He dropped us off at the base of the hill and we went and got in line to get an elephant ride up to the fort.  I was so excited about riding an elephant although it ended up being a little anticlimactic.  I wanted to ride on it's neck but instead rode in one of the box seat things on its back.  It was really fun and there was a stream of tourist getting rides up the "Royal path to the Sungate" and into the fort.  Our elephant "driver" (for lack of a better word) was impatient and did a little elephant passing so we cruised up quickly.  But it was really fun being up that high and swaying with the motion of the elephant's gait as he lumbered along.  At the top we tossed our cameras down to Sharma who took some great picture of us on the elephant.  And when we got off on the platform Sharma got a picture of me petting the elephant who stuck his or her trunk in my hand and covered it with elephant snot.  It was a little gross and all I had to wipe it on was my jeans.  But it was worth being slimed.

After we headed into the Amber fort with Sharma to see the rest.  It's called the Amber Fort because it's built completely of a yellow gold sandstone which gives it the look of amber in the the sunrise and sunset.  FYI the really like naming cities after colors in Rajasthan.  The fort was really fun to walk around and the carvings were as amazing as ever.  Other then the elephant ride my favorite part was the glass room.  It is a building covered in designs of marble inlay and Belgian glass.  It was stunning and attracted a huge crowd of tourists including us.  While we were there we hit a cultural show for 100 extra rupees and got to see a traditional band playing music and later some girls doing traditional Indian classical dancing.  It was really great to see the classical after seeing the ethnic in Khajuraho.  After the program ended we headed out of the fort and met the car which drove us back into the city and to the city palace.

The City Palace was part museum and part showroom.  We went through a textile museum which I thought was really interesting.  Yes, I am my mother's daughter and I do like dress and costume and textiles.  But we also saw exhibits of art, tapestry, and furniture in the museum  section.  The next section was the showroom section where we had an artist explain how miniature art was painted and he painted a post card for me which was really fun.  It's almost like a cartoon drawing of an Indian woman.  We walked around and saw chapals, marble, and art dealers selling stuff.  I ended up buying a great pashmina for a gift for someone at home.  Once we made it out of the show room we walked out and saw the 2 largest silver pots in the world.  Not that exciting as they are just big silver urns with lids.

From there we exited the City Palace and headed across the street to Jantar Mantar -aka- the observatory.  On the way we saw 2 snake charmers playing flutes and there cobras standing out of the baskets.  It was really cool to see in person as I didn't know people still did that.  I got some pictures but stayed well out of striking distance just in case.  Some completely certifiable backpacker was petting the cobras and let the snake charmer guy put the thing around his neck for a picture.  These is absolutely no way I would ever do that even if the snake was drugged and unconscious it wouldn't happen.

After our cobra stop we headed into the observatory which was not at all what I expected but actually really interesting.  I hate to say but I would be awful at trying to explain anything to do with the observatory except to say it had some giant sundials which were really cool and other contraptions to measure the time, season, latitude and longitude and horoscopes.

When we finished up at the observatory we drove back to the hotel and had lunch and a little break then were picked up again at 3:15 and we headed out shopping.  I won't bore you with the details of shopping but we both bought some stuff and it was a fun time.  We got Nagina's memory card downloaded onto a CD or her and then took a drive down the street with all the government buildings.  Then we headed to the movie theater. 

Dinesh and Sharma dropped us off at the famous Rajmandir theater with our tickets to some movie.  I was hoping for a big Bollywood production but it ended up being more of a drama.  The inside of the theater was really nice and modern with cool lights.  I hate to say I was a little disappointed after hearing so much about the theater.  I grew up in Santa Barbara which has the Arlington theater which I think is much more impressive.  We watched the movie and Nagina translated here and there so I wasn't completely lost but could figure it out between watching and translation.  I was really surprised when we had an intermission but apparently Hindi films are usually 3 hours or more long so they put in intermissions. 

I was lost and tired so we ended up leaving early and drove back to the hotel.  We had a nice dinner at the hotel then went up to the room.  I took a nice long hot shower and then packed my stuff up a bit and went to bed.

We were up early the next morning and got ready and repacked our suitcases.  We ate breakfast then checked out of the hotel and picked up our box lunches and loaded into the car for the drive to Bikaner.