As we arrived to Jaipur at 10pm, we were lucky to drive through the pink city at night, and it blew us away. The combination of night serenity and the magical reflections off the astonishing pink walls was reminiscent of a fairy tale. Indeed Jaipur's architecture is considered among the best in the Indian subcontinent. We asked our driver to take us for a tour before getting to our hotel. We passed by the water palace, a floating lotus in the midst of the lake, alone but unafraid to shine its lights all around.
 |
| Jal Mahal |
Come daylight, we got up and took the tuk tuk for a bumpy ride up the hill to Amer Fort. I was excited to see the elephants as I had not seen any before! I was too scared to get up on one though and the closest I got to them was caressing their spiky backs.
The fort itself was stunning and our guide Sharma was still charming at that point. My favorite part was the the mirror palace, covered with thousands of tiny mirrors, colored glasses and mosaics. The Maharaja used to love taking a candle into the mirror palace and it would light up the whole place like tiny stars. His wife once said to him, you have shown me the stars why not the moon? he replied, you are my moon.
 |
| Sheesh Mahal (mirror palace): credit to charming Sharma |
 |
| Sheesh Mahal (mirror palace) |
We then continued to the Hindu temple, met some long lost friends of the Garbz and got blessed!
 |
| Garbz buddies |
 |
| Hindu temple at Amer Fort |
 |
| Hindu Temple at Amer Fort |
 |
| Garbz was blessed! |
Sharma then hypnotized us and guided us into a local shop with goodies and I walked out with my blue sapphire (birth stone) necklace and a bunch of irresistible marble beauties. Guilt-ridden, I swore to end the shopping spree of this trip right there and then.
I guess Sharma had other thoughts, and while he took us sight seeing in the old city, he decided to give us a rest in a jewelry shop, a rest, yeah right. It was under the pretext that he was busy getting the henna that my aunt asked me to bring while in Jaipur. As we were resting, a Tunisian Arabic speaking girl, not more than 24 years old, appeared in the shop. Her story goes, according to her as follows: she was sent by her father to live in Jaipur and learn the trade, partner with the locals and open a gem business. She babbled for an hour about the quality of the jewelry in the shop, about how the owner was her dad's friend and a truly honest person. Well, as soon as we got the henna we were off. I then blurted out giving Sharma a piece of my mind. He apologized. I don't know if he meant it or not, if he cared or not. I didn't care, it was off my chest.
We had a pleasant Rajesthani evening but horrible food that night and had a lovely surprise visit from a friendly grasshopper.
 |
| Rajesthani dinner |
 |
| It tasted so bad |
No comments:
Post a Comment