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Published: January 21st 2006
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Hindi blockbuster
The Pink City of Jaipur
Lost in translation.
What a feeling to wake up in a castle and then have breakfast on the rooftop watching the peacocks give a full on show of some of their mating rituals. I might add unsuccessful or perhaps it takes a bit of time. There was this one male peacock with the full on feathers out for show and he kept on trying to attract this one female but it didn't seem like she wanted to give him the light of day. It was really kinda funny. I guess in the peacock world they like to play hard to get as well. haha
Speaking of the rooftop, yesterday evening we were up there just gazing at the stars. I really wish that I was more knowledgeable when it comes to astronomy but was surprised at myself that I was actually able to identify the Big Dipper...or what I told myself was the Big Dipper. lol Some others spotted Orion's belt and fancy stuff like that but since I'm so not knowing I just took their word for it. Robyn and I seized the opportunity to try and increase our song list
of two but we were pretty unsuccessful. Much to the chagrin of Shauna (who was trying to be helpful in suggesting new song titles for us to try out), Brian and the others we were only really successful in practicing our favourites "All by myself" and "One". Oh the laughs I still get out of those two songs...Good times!
Well, April Fools’ Day it is today. So of course we had to play a trick on somebody. Target: Our group leader, Nitin. I don't really remember who thought up the whole idea but the plan was to be ready to go but have all our bags and selves hidden in Shauna and Brian's room that happened to overlook the courtyard. We were all just about ready and waiting. Then we realized that most of us had not settled our bills so we nonchalantly went down to pay our tabs and never came back because we were in our super secret hiding spot. It was funny to watch as Nitin kept asking people where was their luggage?? Then everyone had their tabs paid and when Nitin pays off the final tab he sort of looks around and says the usual..."Okay
Elephant Ride
That'd be me, Jen, Robyn and Rachel atop of the elephant on the way to the Amber Palace. friends. Time to go." Nobody is in sight so he hightails it upstairs calling for us "friends". Eventually he makes it back down to the courtyard where we all yell out "April Fools!" Okay, so it seemed like it would be funnier than it actually was when we talked about it. Nitin didn't seem too grumpy so it was all in fun...right!
We were now ready to get started...almost. Since some of us wanted to stop off at the bottom of the castle somewhere to get a picture before leaving. Guess somebody was a bit "grumpy" still and seemed a tad impatient...where'd you want to take a picture? We suggested one spot...and got the reply...no, no it's better up there. Well, if you know where the good spot is, why do you ask us where we want to stop?? lol
Okay, now it was ready to get rolling onward towards Jaipur. Thanks to Shauna and Brian's iPod with speaker attachments we were able to enjoy some music. My Archos works with their speakers too so I treated the car to a few songs...one of them being "One". lol Too bad I didn't have "All by myself." Now that
Ain't he cute?
The elephant..not the mahout. haha would have been a hoot and a half...well at least it would have been for me and Robyn. 😊 We had to stop for a bit to let a train pass by. So to the pass the time our jeep put on a little show for the other jeep that was in front of us. We found a new song…."Stop! In the Name of Love" I would have to say that Tom got into the part the best...could give Diana Ross a run for the money. haha After performing the first time someone noticed that there was another jeep ahead of us in the other lane that was also catching a bit of our entertainment (or rather they were amused with us!) All in good fun and it helped to pass the time, right!
Onward to our first real stop, the Amber Palace via an elephant ride. It was interesting to have four people seated atop an elephant..."I'm sorry for having so much McD's...I'll eat more fruits and veggies...I'll exercise more regularly..." haha These elephants seemed a bit bigger than the ones in Thailand. It was good to see that they weren't being mistreated like we had read briefly
about...but that was apparently a few years back. The elephants were all painted with fancy "face paints" and each was decked out with flashy materials. Some of them even had their toe nails painted Pink. Too funny.
The Amber Palace (which was a fort palace) was the former capital before the capital moved to Jaipur. The King had quite a few ladies...12 wives and 300+ concubines. He had a special courtyard where all of the 12 wives had rooms and it was specially built so that each of the wives did not know whom the King had chosen that night. There was also some interesting mirrors and other decorations throughout the fort palace.
We then made it to our hotel that we would call home for the next couple of nights. The afternoon was pretty much free time for us. I had lunch with Robyn, David and Nitin. David had fallen ill recently and I'm guessing he was starting to feel a bit better after seeing what he decided to have for lunch...fried banana fritters, a banana split and a plate of french fries! Yowzers! Guess he has his appetite back and doesn't prescribe to the thought of "take it slowly"...
After lunch Robyn and I sought out another internet place since we walked out of the first place because they were charging 20 Rs more than the "Indian" rate. By the time we finished up at the internet it was time to get ready for a trip to the theater to see a Hindi movie. I can't remember the title (I think Bewefar or something along those lines) but surprise, surprise the theme was based around Unfaithful Love. Since there were about 7 or 8 of us and just one Hindi speaking person in the bunch we missed out on a lot of the translation. But no fear, Robyn and I shared a lot of giggles making up our own storylines. More so in the first part of the movie. After intermission we decided that we should take the film a little more "seriously" but that didn't stop me from making a few comments...
We walked back to the hotel and a few of us went out for a bite of Italian food before retiring to bed. My roommate Jen left the movie early because she wasn't feeling too well. She thinks it was something that she ate. I just hope I don't get or catch anything from her because so far most people in the group have been affected except for a few of us. Hope my lucky stars keep shining because it's definitely not fun being sick especially when on tour...I wouldn't want to miss out on anything...
Hmm, what's this..."Robyn's the coolest chick ever. I don't want to leave her. She's so much fun." Robyn, it's only taken me a couple of weeks to notice your added notations! Only goes to show how far behind I am in updating my blog. 😊 At least I'm in the same month...
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