Day 5 - Jaipur

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Later start today at 9.30am as it's basically a free day. Gordon and Peter had booked another driver like we did for the day, but Arjun said it wasn't necessarily as he and the driver were at our disposal. So we all cancelled the driver and just joined the optional cooking class.

First stop for photos was the Albert Hall (at my request) which fortunately was on the way to the scheduled stop, the Lakshmi Narayan Temple. This is a beautiful Hindi Temple completely built with white marble. It was nice to witness the end of a service when we arrived. Had our first proper rain fall as we arrived but temperature today had dropped considerably. Week before we arrived the highs were over 40 degrees centigrade. This week, it's dropped to low 30s, much more comfortable.

12.30 was time for our cooking class. It was at the Hari Mahal Hotel. Three chefs were there to instruct us. It was really just us stirring the frying pan as they put the ingredients in, so we didn't really learn anything as such, except I was surprised that when I was cooking the chicken marsala, they bring it the boil and leave it boiling for a long time, no simmering.

We finished 2pm and Peter asked if he could go back to the carpet factory to change his carpet. The sun had come out and it was getting hot again, so Arjun suggested we go there first to enjoy the air conditioning and go to the bazaar when it would be cooler at 4pm.

Peter changed his carpet and we all hung around a bit longer. I had nice conversation with the shirt salesman from yesterday about arranged marriages etc.

We got to the bazaar around 3.45pm and Arjun took us to a shoe shop first and helped Daisy bargain a pair of pretty leather shoes for 3000INR after starting at 6000INR. He then took us to a clothing/textiles shop and I left Daisy there to go with the other guys to look at other shops in the street. Met back at the shoe shop at 5pm, Daisy had spent the whole time in the same shop and bought clothes for the grandchildren.

We then went back to the street where the Palace of the Winds was to look around the shops there and take in the general craziness of Jaipur traffic, although I must say traffic seemed more organised in the new part of Jaipur. Of course ended up buying t-shirts for Oscar and myself.

Finally left around 6pm and stopped for another look at the Summer Palace in the lake before getting back to the hotel. Another buffet meal at the hotel before bedtime at 11pm, delayed because of bad internet service at this hotel.

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