Day 9: Jaipur

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Jaipur is in Rajasthan. One would think the landscape is more of a desert. On the contrary, it is surrounded by lot of hills with green trees. It does not rain a whole lot here though. Average rainfall in a year is 12 to 15 inches of which majority is July and August. Before starting to talk about the sites, it will worthwhile to mention that the best breakfast served during the tour is really here. Huge spread of International, South, North etc. On top, they can make dosa per your order. Praveen wanted pancakes here as one of the stations was serving pancakes. The waiter there made a mickey mouse shaped pancake for Praveen! As usual we loaded up as much here. Unfortunately, we had to rush through since the guide had warned that the temperature can reach 40s in daytime here and he would prefer an early start. We had to leave the hotel by 8:15 am. By 8:30 am or so we were in the car. This guide's name is Bhagwan Singh. He had a thick accent but kids were able to follow him except for few words here and there. Our first stop was Albert hall. This palace like building was named by the then King when Prince of wales Albert visited Jaipur. Currently it is a musuem with lot of artifacts stored. We took pictures from outside and headed to Hawa mahal. This is inside the walls of the inner city. Here all the buildings are colored pink and hence jaipur is also called pink city. This hawa mahal is inside the walls overlooking the main thoroughfare. This was primirily built for the queens and maids to see processions and festivals during 1800s. It looks like a honeycomb structure at one end of the palace. To get into the Amber Palace, we had to drive further and cross some moats etc. The walls around the palaces are huge and the palace complex is on top of a hill. There is a 10 minute car ride up the hill. Elephants dressed in royal gear can also take visitors up for Rs 900/- per person. The guide was saying that the lines for the elephant rides are not that much. But we did not take this elephant ride up. This region is also known for peacocks in the woods. Near the palace, we were able to see peacocks in the wild. Sawai generation of kings ruled this area for quite some time during Moghul rule. These palaces have both moghul and hindu art and decors. Guide was OK. He knew his script but outside that he did not know much about the region's history. We left this complex and drove to Lake palace. There is a structure in the lake that is half buried in water. This complex has been purchased by some hospitality company from the current heir of the kings. It would be converted to hotel within next few years. The current generation of royals still live in some of these palaces. The get revenues from renting palaces and locations for hotels etc. From here we proceeded to Gemstone cutting factory and show room. This facility was selling all art work, paintings, art work, quilt etc. We bought few gift items here and a carry-on bag. We skipped lunch since we had a heavy breakfast. After that we drove back to the city and visited the summer palace and museum. These show all the generations of sawai kings etc. It started raining outside and one important site to see was Jantar Mantar. This is the astronomical observatory. It was around 4:30 PM and they closed it in advance because of the rain. We could see the facility only from outside. The driver recommended a very good Onion Kachori shop in the downtown area since kachori is a very popular dish here. We got onion kachoris for all including the driver. We returned to the hotel by 6:15 PM. Ideally, we should be heading out to local Rajasthani place for dinner. But we were all tired and the kids did not want to move from the hotel premise. We went 'a la carte' in the local Okra restaurant. This included - Quesadilla, biryani, pizza and pasta. it was OK. Most of these restaurants try to do justice to international cuisine such as quesadillas but often fall short. We went to bed at 11 PM.

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