Recap of Jaipur

After our first night of real rest, we woke up refreshed and ready for a jam-packed day of sight-seeing and shopping. To our happy surprise, the staff had arranged a beautiful breakfast out on the balcony. Toast, jam, eggs, omlettes, cereal, papaya, and a delicious India dish called "poha" (not sure about spelling) that consisted of fried rice, onion, and some spices.

After breakfast, we headed to our first destination, Amber Fort, located just outside the city. The fort is a formidable sight, sitting atop the mountain, but our sight was mostly drawn to the line of elephants, snaking up the side of the mountain. Although it is very popular to ride an elephant up to the fort, we declined given the long lines and the fact that we'll be doing this in Kerala (South India). We stopped by the side of the road to take pictures and, as usual, the trinket peddlers approached us with their wares and sales pitches. However, this time, when we told them "No, thank you", they said "OK" and walked on. Amazing. Our driver did a great job taking us up the steep inclines in the van (there are many jeeps for hire for this exact purpose.

We decided to get 2 audio guides for the fort (probably more factual than the in-person guides hanging outside the fort gates), which turned out to be extremely informative, albeit a bit long-winded. We learned about the maharajas and ranis, the separation of men and women, the receiving hall, the gardens patterned after Persian rugs, the administrative court, Summer Palace with the mirrored inlays to retain heat, women's "floor", and the long and narrow back passageway where they would hold elephant fights. Very interesting and actually quite fun to explore the forts - many staircases, passageways, ramps, rooms, vistas, etc.

Our next stop was a textile shop called Andraad on the way back to the city, recommended to us by our home stay hostess. This was a great shop with beautiful shawls, stoles, saris, pashminas, bedspreads, etc. Ellen and I picked up a few shawls/scarves here. Very soft and pretty.

Next, entering the Pink City and visiting the City Palace. We lunched at the City Palace Cafe where we had both Indian and Continental fare. I had a hot dog (chicken), Ellen had a cheese sandwich, and Eugene & David had Indian food. The food was a bit of a letdown relative to our other meals so far, but it was in a superb location. After lunch, we followed our audio guides through the City Palace which took us on a tour of historical textiles, armory, artisan museum, etc.

From the City Palace we headed to the Lassiwalla, a purveyor of lassis (a sweet yogurt drink) that has been around since 1944. This was to be the lassi highlight of our trip, and we were excited to find the original shop as many copycat lassiwallas have since popped up. Unfortunately, when we got there, the sanitary conditions forced us to walk away. There were flies everywhere and a sour smell from the yogurt.

Disappointed, but not deterred, we made our way to our next destination, a jewelry store, also recommended to us by our home stay host. This very professionally run store had both traditional and non-traditional jewelry. Ellen found a beautiful pair of dangly gold earrings and a necklace, both made with semi-precious stones.

By this time, it was getting dark, but we still had one shopping destination left: shoes. We headed back to the homestay and luckily ran into our hosts. The hosts' son offered to walk with us to a nearby shoe store, where we found some very cute and colorful Indian style flats.

We are now back at the homestay, tired, but feeling very accomplished from our sightseeing and purchases. We will be having dinner with our hosts in a few minutes downstairs and then plan on taking it easy tonight.