Blogs from Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, Asia - page 11

Mercredi nous nous sommes réveillés dans la brume. Quelque chose de solide là. Un brouillard où on voit pas dix pieds en avant. On a remercié Vishnu d’avoir visité le Taj Mahal la veille parce que une journée plus tard et on voyait rien. C’est avec cette belle température (brume, humide, froid) que débuta notre road trip dans le Rajasthan (l’un des états de l’Inde) avec notre guide Krishna. Le trajet commence avec une petite route à deux voies. En moins d’une heure, une tentative de dépassement mène pratiquement à la catastrophe, alors que note minivan et le gros bus s’en venant en sens inverse et sortant de la brume à la dernière seconde doivent freiner jusqu’à l’arrêt pour éviter la collision frontale. Le gros bus finira son freinage de travers. Ce sera le dernier dépassement ... read more

Today was an early day up at our hotel. The hotels here have been great so far. (Though the last night was kind of rough with several trips to the bathroom.....Delhi Belly has set in). It was a good bus ride through the countryside to see things outside the cities but the highway system sure seems terrible. And I mean terrible!! The roads are really really bad shape. There are sooo many ruts and bumps in the roads that you often wonder how the cars and trucks survive a day's drive. But then you look at them and it all makes sense....they are also in really bad shape. We arrived at our heritage hotel around 4 or so and had a relaxing afternoon to walk around the town of 10000 or so. Who knew there were ... read more

"Can you reheat this Christmas pudding, please?" "Excuse me, sir?" "We eat this at Christmas, can you heat it up?" "No problem, sir." Poor chap it was a strange request. It did mean that we got to have Ian's home made Christmas pudding on Christmas Day. Jane's family back in Sheffield were having the same pudding Ian had made. We had moved to the Narain Niwas Palace Hotel (www.hotelnarainniwas.com) for the two days over Christmas and this should not have been, and to be fair was not, difficult for the waiters to oblige. We gave them a taste so they could experience this black sweet mass these foreigners insisted on eating. The hotel was very comfortable with large beds, a sitting area and ensuite bathroom. It had been built in 1928 for a General Amar Singh ... read more

My day was spent at this fort mostly and it was interesting as far as forts go. They are reminders of past times of defense and war of which I am against. The view over Jaipur was fantastic and you really get a picture of exactly how big this capital city of Rajasthan is. Anyway I will try to upload some pictures of this fort and hope you enjoy the photos I select and find them interesting to look at.... read more

Geo: 26.8515, 75.814We had a later start today. After breakfast we headed out of the city of Jaipur. As we drove along the road we saw peacocks, monkeys and elephants. Our first view of Amber Fort was from across a lovely lake. The fort is perched high up on a hilltop surrounded by a large stone wall that goes on for miles. We could see elephants carrying people on there backs up the winding road to the palace. We did not experience this as we had heard that the elephants are treated poorly by their owners. So, we enjoyed a wild jeep ride along narrow cobble stone streets dodging camels and elephants along the way, quite thrilling.The fort was built in 1592 by a Maharajah and it is a superb example of Rajput architecture. It had ... read more