Journey into Jaipur

Before we left we had an interview with the placement manager for Peru's Challenge, who asked us about our experience being confronted with 3rd-world living conditions. I remember at the time my brain flashed through my life and really couldn't come up with big examples of when I would have had that experience.

Now Peru certainly had its moments, as the school community we were at really had not much, but nothing comes close to what we have seen so far here in India. I think some of the impact is because there are so many people the scale of what we are seeing is far greater than anything we have seen anywhere else. It's just so ever-present that I find it's a real element in our India experience. Probably far more than I thought it would be. I hope I can remember this when I am back home and stop myself from complaining about the hardship of the cable being out.

We left Delhi yesterday and drove (well, our guide Mr Singh drove) about 5 hours to Jaipur, the Pink City, which was the second stop on our India tour. It's the "Pink City"because all the buildings in the old city are painted pink (actually it's more like terra cotta. I guess "Terra Cotta City isn't as catchy)We had a brief visit at the Jaipur Monkey Temple, then found our hotel and had dinner (butter chicken = yummy for the tummy).





Today we had our power tour day. We started off with a drive-by of the Hawa Mahal, where the royal women would get to watch street ceremonies. They could see out but no one could see in.



The next stop was the big one. The Amber Fort. Amb-solutely amazing is all I can say. See for yourself.


The view from beneath the fort. You could ride elephants up the hill, but as we are seasoned elephant riders now we decided to skip the line


The view from inside. Can you see the elephants?


The view to the outside.


The short cut out


Where the Maharajah's twelve wives hung out. I wonder how he dealt with Valentine's Day?

The rest of the day had us visiting the Water Palace. Apparently there are plans to make this into a high-end hotel.



After some lunch (yes! More Indian food!) we made our way to the City Palace, as well as Gaitore, which is the royal crematorium site.




Our City Palace visit brought one piece of unexpected excitement. Both Heather and Chloe sat down to listen to some local music and saw what else was listening.....




Now it's time to rest up before we hit the road again tomorrow morning as we head to Bikaner and again experience the incredible contrast that is India.