Jaipur: Days 1 & 2

After one movie, two vegetarian curry meals, and an eleven hour nap, we landed in Delhi around 7 pm on Monday night. Right when our plan hit the ground I noticed it started to smell like incense. As if she was reading my mind, the flight attendant behind me addressed the smokey smell by informing us that Delhi has recently replaced Beijing as the smoggiest city in the world. It had rained earlier in the day so the mix of humidity and smog left a nice, moist, hazy cloudiness everywhere--even in the airport. We took a quick bus ride to our hotel, ate dinner, and settled in our rooms for an early night.


Day 1

I like to think I'm somewhat invincible to jet lag since I sleep so much on airplanes, but around 4 in the morning I was wide awake--not common for the night owl within me. I tossed and turned a few times when my roommate, Rosie, let me know she was wide awake too. Around 6 we got out of bed to get ready, had breakfast at the hotel, and loaded into the bus with the rest of our group to embark on the five hour drive to Jaipur. This was our first real experience with Indian traffic. Think Chicago during rush hour but everyone weaves around each other, nearly hitting one another, few signs, few lights, few rules. The honking culture is really interesting. In America we are use to a car honk being negative, but in India the non-stop horns are simply to let other drivers you are there in case they don't see you. Most trucks even have "honk please" written on the back of them to ensure other drivers follow this. It sounds absolutely chaotic, but it works.

The rest of the drive was full of unique sights. The majority of what we passed by were partially torn down buildings. Dr. Adya explained that a lot of people will just start developing buildings without government approval--which in return will get torn down by the government later on since it wasn't suppose to be built in the first place. We passed a few developed areas and some beautiful mountains that looked remarkably similar to the mountains in southern California...only with camels and wild monkeys roaming around. I have also become fascinated by Indians ability to pack people into cars. A typical sedan might have four people sitting in the back seat, with others sitting on their laps, and then a kid or two  on top of those laps. Some people will even stand on the back bumper of trucks and jeeps for a ride on the highway. I'm grateful for the spacious bus we will be using for our transportation. 

We got to Jaipur and had another delicious Indian meal. I'm falling more and more in love with curry and the other spices used in all of their dishes. I ordered a chicken masala dish which uses a tomato curry sauce. After most Indian meals, they will serve fennel seeds that taste like black licorice along with sugar crystals--the mixture has a very distinct taste that is meant to cleanse the palate.The restaurant we ate at was a big tourist spot so they had some fun music and dancing for entertainment. Jaipur is a very popular tourist destination for India since it still remains very historic and traditional so we saw a lot of foreigners. 

After lunch, we picked up a tour guide (literally pulled over and he jumped on the bus) who showed us around Jaipur's famous Pink City. We first stopped at this place called Jantar Mantar which is home to various large astronomical instruments including the largest sun dial in the world which is pretty impressive; unfortunately we didn't have any sun out this day do we weren't able to see the dials in action. I'm amazed by the colors and artistic details throughout this country. Buildings are painted in bright pastels, women wear rich jewel tones, and trucks have so many beautiful paintings on them--all of which contrast the dry desert landscape that we've seen.

After a visually stimulating tour of Jaipur, we were dropped off at our hotel. I joined a few others for a search for an ATM to get my hands on 1,500 rupees (about $30). After this successful stop, we had dinner that was held on the top floor of the hotel where we had another delicious "family style" meal.

Day 2

I woke up around 5 am again and sat in bed for awhile before getting ready for the day. If only it always felt so natural to wake up so early. 

We met up with the group, loaded up the bus, and headed for the Amber Fort--a breathtaking palace built up one of the mountain ranges that overlooks a lake in Jaipur. In order to get up the mountain people can work out their quads by climbing hundreds of stairs or you can take a much more exciting and bumpy ride...on an elephant! I took the ride with another kid in the group, Joe. We were the second to last pair to board our elephant but apparently we were on the Seabiscuit of the pack because we passed everyone else in the group and were the first to arrive at the top. Each elephant has a seat for two people and then a "driver" that sits on top of the elephant's head. Our group tip was paid in advance we were warned that they would pressure us to tip them again at the end but we were not suppose to pay anymore. Sure enough once we passed everyone, got to the top, and took some pictures, our driver turned around to cheerfully ask how we enjoyed the ride, and then motioned for a tip. We told him no numerous times to which he responded by stopping the elephant and holding us hostage. We jokingly thought about unhooking the seat and jumping off ourselves but eventually gave in and gave him an extra tip. The palace is made out of both sandstone and marble--it was so large and beautiful. We spent a lot of time wandering around and enjoying the beautiful view from the top. One of my favorite parts of the palace was a hallway made up of a bunch of little mirrors. You could light a candle and it would light up the entire hallway since the light would reflect on every mirror.

We just finished off lunch and are on our way to Agra where we will be seeing the Taj Mahal in the morning. Namaste!