Jaipur

 March 14th - Friday

Today is the Holi Festival holiday and there is a special Holi festival site nearby for tourists only.  We offered to walk there, as it was only about 12 mins away, but our driver insisted on picking us up.

We arrived at the festival around 9:15am and there were already around 150 people there. We had brought white clothes with us from home and Jeet gave us a bag of coloured powder each. Soon people were throwing powder at us and we were throwing it back. Some would walk up and rub it in your face or drop some in your hair.  There was music playing and everyone was so happy and joyful. There was food and drink available, and places to sit away from the mayhem, and also a stall where you could go and replenish your powder. The festival itself and extra powder was all free.  The music was a mix of Indian and Western and had the crowd pumping. 

We stayed about 2 hours, then went back to our room for a shower, cause we were covered in color.  As it was a public holiday Jeet left us alone for the afternoon. With everything closed, we stayed in our room for a while catching up on emails etc, before wandering out to see what was around. I had seen several restaurants close by but only one was open, TGIH (Thank God its Healthy}  We decided to have a late lunch then a snack in our room later, rather than going back out again.  The food was very tasty, but not sure if there was something extra in my mushroom dish as I was vomiting by around 9:00pm

March 15th - Saturday

An ordinary nights sleep as I still wasn't well - and vomited again this morning.  Had one piece of toast for breakfast and crossed my fingers that I would be OK for the day.

First stop was the Hawa Mahal, also known as the Wind Palace.  This is in the old part, referred to as the Pink City.  The Hawa Mahal was built in 1799 and has over 950 windows.  They were designed so the women inside could watch passers-by, as they couldn't be seen themselves. 

We then drove past Amber Fort and the traffic was bedlam.  Again due to the Public Holiday yesterday, it seemed everybody was heading here.  It took us around 30-45 minutes to travel a couple of kilometres. We didn't stop here  though, heading to another step well, Panna Meena ka Kund.  This was deeper and more spectacular than the one we had seen in Jodhpur, but we couldn't go down any of the steps as there was a very serious group filming a girl in a red dress. Not sure if she was a social media influencer or if it was an advertisment being filmed. In any case they had at least  4 different cameras and a crew of 6.  A bit annoying, but not the end of the world.

We went via back streets to a rear entrance for Amber Fort, but the traffic was still very ordinary, even by Indian standards. At one point we sat still for at least 20 minutes and because the road is skinny and winding we didn't really know why there was delay.  

Amber Fort is fairly high up - as is every Fort - and you could choose to ride an elephant  from the carpark up to the entrance.  Coming from the back that wasn't an option for us, though we had already decided we wouldn't do it.  We are finding that Forts generally have more beautiful facades than interiors.  Some rooms have lots of mirrors and coloured stones attached to the walls and ceilings, whilst others are fairly plain, but with some flowers or similar painted in the walls.  We still enjoyed looking around though and spent a bit over an hour there.

On the way to our lunch spot we passed many elephants that had finished their shift at the Fort and were heading back home. It was pretty cool passing them as they sauntered down the road. They had their faces painted in Holi colors.

After lunch [I just had soup and naan] we visited the City Palace.  Once again the Royal family is living in part of this palace, but the rest is open to the public, including function spaces.  We had a guide here, who provided lots of good background to the family and the building which dates from the 18th century.  He also took some great photos of us, including in a room full of mirrors and colored stones on the walls. 

Last stop for the day was Jantar Mantar, a fascinating yet confusing place.  Jantar Mantar is a park from the 18th century that contains 19 different astronomical instruments, ranging from huge sundials (20 metres high) to contraptions in the ground that could track the sun and provide information on stars etc. We found it all difficult to follow, cause we're not that clever, but the amazing thing was that they were originally designed/created by a 14 year old boy.

Driving back to our hotel we took a small diversion to view the Albert Hall Museum, a beautiful British inspired building from the late 1800's.

Forgot to mention we have two peacocks hanging around just outside our window.