Day 4
After my first full-ish night sleep, I wake up with a bounce in my step as today we were off exploring and I actually couldn't wait. But first breakfast and to sample what delights we had in store for us that morning. Ben went for the more unusual spiced baked beans and chapatis which I'm not sure he'll do again, where I decided to sample some of their delicious looking cut fruit and yoghurt. Fatal error, I'm sick with 10 minutes and put off the fresh fruit for the rest of the trip. But I wasn't going to let that ruin my day and we begin our sight seeing marathon, though with me still a little queasy in the back.
We start to move through the city of Jaipur and I instantly notice a difference from the madness of Agra and Delhi, it still has the cows and the cars and the now familiar honking but the streets are wider and the pink building give the view a faint rose tint. First stop for the day is the Hawa Mahal, a temple built with Gnesh's crown in mind but before we can see its beauty we have to cross the road and that's quite an experience. I've made a handy step by step guide for anyone else wanting a go.
Step one. Decide on your point of finish, there is not changing route once to start so make sure you end point is a good one.
Step two. Have your head up focused on your point and begin walking.
Step three. Keep walking at a slow and steady pace whilst all traffic moves around you and silently scream on your head.
Step four. Reach your end point and assess any injuries obtained. Complete.
Inside the Hawa Mahal is beautiful with it's pretty stain glass windows, slowly decreasing in size floors and epic fountains. You also get a pretty good view of Jaipur and I start to appreciate its design, with the old centre being 9km squared and full of neat and wide blocks and two or three storey high pink buildings. Our next sight on the tour of Jaipur, is a short walk away to the Jantar Mantar, which is an amazing planetarium. It has the worlds oldest and largest sun dial and it's pretty impressive, it can tell the correct time down to 2 seconds. The planetarium also has instruments to tell you how many hours of sun light there is left and where the planets are in the sky amount other things. Very amazing and accurate for some built over 300 years ago.
We stop for a quick drink before we are whisked of for our next stop which is the palace, where the current 16 year old king lives, not a bad pad for a teenager. We pass our second snake charmer on the way in, who I am confidently telling Ben is using a fake snake till it turns around and bites him. The palace is quite nice but nothing on our Queen's abode. The current royal family are quite clever and have opened up parts and built museums inside to gain revenue, which include a textile museum with the largest jacket in it I have ever seen, you could easily fit 8 of me in there, a weapon museum (with a lot of back scratchers) and a large courtyard which was in the process of being kitted out for a wedding when we were there, with bright pink drapes, beautiful flowers and red carpets. You can hire it for £15,000 which is probably a lot cheaper than you could get Buckingham palace for.
Our guide now takes us on the usual "oh look my friends jewellery gallery" but this time we are prepared. We are given mercifully quick and very rubbish demonstration by the chief and then on to the hard sell of rings and pendants which I can't deny are very beautiful and exceptionally cheap but not something you really want whilst travelling. We did however pick up a little Ganesh for good luck on our travels, nicely bartered down and quickly leave before we run out of the ability to say no after the 100th time.
I don't think I've mentioned enough our lovely driver, Harpal yet who funny, very inciteful and a rather good driver for Indian standards. He is our tip giver and daily piss taker and today is no different. He has decided that I have baby hunger as I regularly am hungry and can get a tiny bit grumpy about it. So as he teases, he tells us that he will get us something scrumptious to eat and he wasn't joking. We get a bowl of red sweet carrot mush and a bowl of coconut saffron mush followed by the spiciest but most delicious freshly made samosa. Bliss.
Next stop of the day after our stomachs have been nicely filled was a textile printing and carpet making factory. Conscious this might be another hardsell but relaxing into the Indian way of shopping, we watch first a demonstration on how they print the cotton, it's a true art as some pieces can have up to 7 stamps on them, all of which need to line up perfectly to give a truly magnificent finish. I have a go and am actually not bad at it so wasn't too surprised when they offered me a job. A brilliant textile printer and so modest, aren't I wonderful.
We move on next to see a carpet being made which was fascinating to watch, a large complex one like I take with me to my fairs can take up to two years to make. However interesting this was though, it wasn't the carpets I had my eye on. I quickly move the guy on and we wander upstairs to the textile section and I'm blown away.
But it wasn't the carpets I was interested in. We wandered upstairs to the textile section and was blown away. I have never seen so much fabric. We had a wander around and decided on getting some tailored items made, I got a pretty Green gingham patterned shirt in a vintage style and Ben got a traditional Indian cotton shirt in grey. We were told they would be done in 6 hours so we carried on the tour.
Next up was Amber City, which is where the King used to live before he built Jaipur in all its wonder. Ben fell in love with Amber fort, it had lots of beautiful parts but I've started to get slightly over fort-ed and could have quite happily sat in the sun whilst the guide took Ben around. After this we had our elephant ride, which was pretty fabulous, if not a tiny bit creepy as we went through a quite a built up area and everyone was staring but it was a really comfy ride, much better than camels.
After this we do another fort which has pretty fabulous views of Jaipur and start to make our way back. Our final stop of the day is to have our picture taken with the palace in the lake in the back ground. By this point I'm not just over forted, I am also over peopled and once back at the hotel, I hide in my iPad for two hours reading up on indian history.
Dinner tonight is to come with the promise of some interesting indian dancing as a side line to our meal, which actually just consisted of a very uncomfortable girl doing a couple of moves for about 2 minutes but the food was yummy and whilst we were nibbling our shirts turned up, can't really get better service than that :D
Once we got back and had a little bit of a fashion shoot, I had my first FaceTime session with home with the Auld family and it was so nice to touch base. It makes all this seem a little more real every time I hear from home, otherwise it kinda of feels like a dream and I don't want that. I want to remember each part of this for years to come.
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