Yes--Delhi 2.0. WHAT?!?! I know I am thinking that same thing. We didn't want Jake going by himself so here I am again. And it doesn't suck at all. I am one lucky and thankful girl. It's all pretty unreal to me.
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Today involved a lot of traveling, but because I got an hour
of sleep last night I was okay with it. In the end, travel=sleeping time. Hallelujah!!
Our flight was quick, our baggage pick up was quicker and our driver and Shaun
were waiting for us at the airport. Shaun has been doing some work in North
India and it worked out that we all drove down to Jaipur together. Benson is
sick so he had to stay behind today but hopefully he will be able to feel
better and join us at the end of the trip.
We stopped at a yummy little restaurant for lunch, where I
all of a sudden realized that I am now able to handle and tear my naan bread
entirely with my right hand. It use to be that I had to sneak the left hand in
for reinforcement ever now and then but somewhere (lately I think) I’ve broken
free of my left hand training wheels and can do it all on my own now. I was one
proud American. I’ve also been 95% successful in tying my sarees all by myself
lately too. It figures that in the last couple of months I am here all the little
things I have been working on are finally coming together huh? The other
highlight from lunch was this super cool lamp.
They had a few of them around
the restaurant and Shaun was making fun of me for liking them so much but oh
well-I liked them anyway. They were so colorful and detailed and it looked like
every single piece had been placed by hand.
Once we got to Jaipur Shaun left to do his thing and then
Jake and I left to do ours. Our thing included dropping our stuff off at the
hotel—where Jake and I will be sharing a bed by the way, which is a little
strange but whatever. The view out of our window is this:
and this God is standing watch in the parking lot of our hotel so I think we'll be just fine.
I knew I was back in Northern India when I saw this:
Children riding camels lead by children-that normal right?
After ditching our bags we went to the Astrology Observatory. Seeing
it for the second time was still pretty cool. In some ways I think I picked
up on a few things that I missed the first time I came.
After the Observatory we headed to the City Palace. I didn’t
see this place last time I was here and man I missed out! The Royal family of
Jaipur have given up some of their estate which has been turned into a museum
that pretty much showcases themselves. I loved seeing the different sections,
i.e. weapons section, clothing section, hat section, etc. I have toured other
palaces before, but this one was different because it has fairly “recent” items
on display from a royal family that still exists/rules…..in a way. The current
King is a 17 years old boy and I don’t really know how much say he really has
in how things happen around here but still, you get the point.
We visited a
wing where the royal artists had their shops set up. You could watch their
demonstrations and listen to their royal artist lineage—which went pretty far
back for some of them. Of course they wanted to sell you their stuff but even
then they weren’t as pushy as some vendors. It was mostly just fascinating.
Another part of the palace was being set up for a wedding
that is happening later on tonight and it was FANCY!!! Our tour guide told us
that it costs 1 millions Lakhs (I'm not sure of how many dollars that converts to but I know it is a lot) to simply rent
this part of the palace and these guys had huge catering tables and tons of
flowers and uniformed royal guards and ornate furniture and the list goes on
and on. I felt like my status increased simply by walking into the area while
it was being set up.
Yes, this picture is meant to be here--this is the view above one of the walls
We swung by the fabric printing store so Jake could get some
shirts made. I was so good at resisting all the amazingly cute fabrics—and I
made myself proud, so obviously I have to write about it. :)
In addition to food, dinner consisted of watching some tipsy
geriatric Japanese people dance with the restaurants entertainment. They got
Jake and I to join for a few minutes but we were both so hungry that we didn’t
last long. It was more fun watching them anyway. The actual entertainers were
really good at their jobs. Like really good. They looked so little that it made
me a little nervous but man they were impressive.
