Jaipur City Palace and Train Delays

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Today is our last in Jaipur and we woke to lots of rain. We checked out of our hotel and walked over the the City Palace. It turns out the soles of my shoes are no longer waterproof so with somewhat soggy feet we entered the palace (all my footwear is falling apart).

The palace is beautiful. Unfortunately of the part open to the public (the Royal family still live in much of it) half seems to have been taken over by shops. I rather resent spending a lot of money to see yet more shops and stalls full of things we don’t want or need!
The first building you enter has a surprisingly interesting collection of textiles with descriptions of costumes for men and women. We next saw the armoury where they’ve obviously had a lot of fun arranging all the weapons into words, pretty patterns and even images. There were some very unusual items and we enjoyed wondering around. The best bit of the armoury, for us, was the building it’s in. The ceilings are beautifully decorated with intricate guilded patterns. Unfortunately photography is not allowed so I’ve got no pictures of them.
From there we went into the next courtyard, with a public audience hall. It was surreal seeing stunning chandeliers covered in pigeons as this is an open air hall.
The private audience Hall is indoors and surrounded by paintings of the Jaipur Royal family. It’s a magnificent room and much more like our European idea of a palace than many of the other places we’ve seen (again, no photos allowed).

Palace explored we wondered back to our hotel, got our bags and headed over to the station. At the station we ate a speedy lunch and went to get our train to Agra. At this point we discovered it was running over 5 hours late. This means that instead of arriving at 1850 we would be leaving at 2020...

Fortunately this station has a pleasant 1 & 2ac waiting room. I have managed to darn my socks, write my diary and read plenty of Harry Potter (in French). I guess this is all part of the India experience...

To add to this experience the help desk was no longer manned from about 8pm and our train was removed from all boards except the one outside the station. And delayed further to 2215 (we were expecting it at 1455). With little idea as to whether of not it was running we sat on the platform it was last listed as leaving from. Fortunately it did eventually arrive at about 2240 and we were finally on our way at 2300. It got better - the morbidly obese man on the bed next to us snored really, really loudly. Not impressed.
Instead of arriving in Agra at 1850 we arrive sometime after 3am. Fortunately, after waking up the receptionist at our hostel, there was at least a bed waiting for us.

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Photos

City Palace
Peacock gate

City Palace
Peacock gate

City Palace
View of Royal residence

Jaipur - Bazaar
Renovation works