The entire group was very excited this morning. When Bhanu told us a few days ago that this was going to happen we all got a little giddy. I had seen that it was a possibility on the trip itinerary but with things like this, I didn't want to get my hopes up. So after breakfast we all quickly loaded onto the bus and headed out for one of the highlights of the trip.
The scenery and views from out of the windows were still just incredible to see.
Lots of chickens
A Camel hauling things
Tents along the roadside
Wild Pigs hanging out
We started to get closer to the Amer Fort and could see it up on top of the mountain we were driving along.
The buses were not able to drive up to the fort entrance so there were only three ways to get up there, walk, ride a little jeep or ride an elephant. We were so excited when we pulled up to the parking area and saw a row of elephants waiting for us. They were awesome, there faces painted and everything.
As soon as we stepped off the bus, there were dozens of hawkers just waiting to push their souvenirs on us. Jed and I just ignored them, never looked at anything and never made eye contact so they didn't hound us the way they hounded others. To us, it was to the point of comical at how aggressive they were to make a deal but there were a few in the group that did not find the humor in it.
We loaded up on to the elephants two by two and road up to the top of the mountain. The hawkers continued to hound many in our group all the way to the top, throwing different things up onto the elephants and having the elephant "drivers" try and sell things as well. We just had one guy that wanted our camera so he could take pictures of us and "Tony #1" that used his camera to take a million pictures of us. (For him to sell us later.)
The ride to the top was pretty surreal. I couldn't stop grinning and laughing at the fact that we were riding an elephant... in India! And the fact that the elephant sneezed on us a few times was just the icing on the cake. For the past few days we had watched as locals used elephants as a "normal" means of transportation and we were getting that opportunity as well. The views from on top of the elephant and the ride up the mountain were beautiful!
At the top, we met up with Bhanu and he started the tour of the Amer Fort. Again, it was a structure unlike anything we had really seen before. The view from the top were just amazing and poor Bhanu had a hard time keeping our attention as we couldn't stay focused because of all the things to see and take pictures of.
Jacob, Marion, Jed & I
Captain Dan, Delia, Jed & I
The view from the top
He was able to teach us how they were able to heat and cool different parts of the fort and many of the main areas only had 3 sides and a large opening into the courtyard.
Andre, Corinne, Mark, Jed & I
After a while, he allowed us to go and explore on our own. For a while, we just walked around getting lost in the maze of hallways, stairs that went in circles and dead ends. We laughed and ran around like little kids trying to find each other and some who figure out how to get to the next over look or level and more importantly, back to the courtyard so we don't get left.
Brandon, Lisa, Jed & I
As we were walking out of the fort, we could hear music being played. When we turned the corner, I could not believe my eyes! There were snake charmers!! We stood and listened for a while and at first, I thought the snakes were fake but they invited us to come and sit right between the two that were "charming" the snakes and I can assure you, those snakes were real and really scary!! But I could not believe that we were seeing this. It was just so cool! (Somewhere there is a picture of me with Ciby, the snake charmers and the snakes but I don't have it, yet.)
When our time in the fort was done, we were again met by dozens of hawkers. This time all of them were looking for certain people because now they were trying to sell you the pictures they had taken of you on an elephant ride up. It was pretty genius, really. Through all of that chaos, Bhanu was sending us down the mountain by three's on jeeps. As we were getting on the jeep, "Tony #1" found Jed. He did a great job walking away from the crazy price he wanted to charge us for all the pictures he took and as the jeep was driving away (with "Tony #1" on the back bumper) he took the deal that Jed offered for the pictures.
Tony #1 pictures
Tony #1 pictures
Ciby, Jed & I on the jeep ride down
From the back of the jeep
On our way back to the hotel we made a quick stop for photos at the Water Palace/ Jal Mahal. It looked so crazy just "floating" out in the water.
Two stories were above water and three stories below
We had one last stop before we headed back at a textiles factory. This was another trip that was so interesting to learn about. They use stamps to make different blankets, clothing, scarves, bedspreads and all kinds textiles. We also learned how they make different kinds of rugs and they set us free in the gift areas.
Hand stamping all the fabric
The flower is one stamp and the dots (on the top flowers) are a second hand stamp
Hand weaving a rug
Trimming the rugs by hand
Torching the back of all the rugs
They had a demo where we could walk on all the rugs
One of the guys that stamps and the demo piece he made each of us.
Diana, Shauna, Jed & I
We laughed with Fernando & Jennifer about how the rug display was a lot like the demonstration when we both had visited Turkey in years past. We even made bets with them and Marion over who we thought would actually buy one of these rugs. We looked into getting Jed a traditional shirt or vest but they were way too expensive so we wandered the shops being silly.
When we got back to the hotel, Jed and I decided to explore the area to see if we could find places to eat for lunch, ideas for dinner and see if there was any shopping we could do. We were pretty surprised by the lack of all of those things. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time walking around and we saw some wild things, they just weren't food or ideas we would need or want to buy. So after we were done exploring, we headed back to the hotel to eat, sign up for the optional dinner & dancing event this evening and get ready for our afternoon tour.
The City Palace was another incredibly large structure with courtyards, gardens and all kinds of different rooms.
We explored Sabha Niwas / Durbar Hall, a very large room that would hold meetings with the King and Queen. They still had everything set up with there large fancy chairs and artwork of all the Kings that had come through this room.
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There were other rooms that they have turned into museums that had lots of art as well as articles of clothing many of the Kings would wear. There were all kinds of stories about Kings,one of the Kings was named a King at 2 years old and was 7 ft tall and 4 ft wide!
The other main exhibit they had was the Sileh Khana, this was a museum full of armory. It was very impressive! Not only did they have tons of weapons, it was surprising to see the state of the art stuff at the time. And the way they displayed the weapons was impressive as well.
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We spent about an hour just walking around the property exploring the different courtyards and rooms before we walked over to Jantar Mantar Observatory.
I originally imagined the Observatory to be a lot like a planetarium but I would not have been more wrong. The Observatory was a large opened area with many different architectural astronomical instruments.
There were 14 main devices throughout the area. The main ones that Bhanu talked about were Jai Prakash & the Samrat Yantra.
Samrat Yantra
Jai Prakash
The Jai Prakash is used for astronomy and astrology. It looks really cool and I really didn't have a clue what I was looking at.
Samrat Yantra is there version of a sun dial. It was a very cool to see but there was something a little unique about this instrument. They tell you that it tells the exact time of Jaipur. So you think, ok, it will tell me the time for all of India since it is all in the same time zone, but no, according to this instrument, Jaipur has an official time that is different then all the rest of India that is told by this instrument and then time is added and subtracted based on the white board beside it that tells your add or subtract X amount of minutes from what the instrument reads... interesting isn't it.
After our astronomy & astrology lessons, that went right over my head, we had time to walk around the area and explore the other devices. There was one device for each zodiac so we had to find ours, or what we thought were ours, we weren't really sure.
Fae, Sharon, Jed & I
Jack, Beth, Jed & I
On our way back to the bus, we had the craziest experience! These two donkeys came charging at us. I don't think they were coming for us, just that something had scared them and they took off. Shocked at the fact that these two donkeys were coming right at us, Jed and I just froze and they made a bee line right between the two of us. We just laughed and laughed at what had just happened. I think you just had to be there.
This is the archway the donkeys ran throw after charging us
As we made it back to our rooms to get ready for our evening event, Jed and I had a few minutes to enjoy the beautiful Indian sunset.
It wasn't long before we were back on the bus heading out to dinner. Bhanu took us to a beautiful outdoor venue with live music, dancing and even puppets! It was such a fun experience. The dancers were very talented and were dancing with tons of bowls on her head and sometimes with bowls of fire!
But I think the highlight of the night had to be these two young boys that play the drum and sang "American" music.
By the end of the night, almost our entire group was up there dancing and enjoying a very memorable night.
On our way back, we started talking to Peter and Allison who both came to dinner in there newly purchased traditional Indian clothes. Peter's shirt was the perfect combination of orange and maroon and when we saw it, we thought, we have to get that for Jed, it is perfect! Peter let us in on a little secret, he had it custom made in the hotel for $20!! When we heard that, we had to try and get one for Jed. Thankfully, the shop was still opened when we got back super late that night and he agreed to make Jed a shirt and have it done before we left the next morning at 8am. We were so excited! After a few measurements, we were off to call it a night after a fun day of exploring Jaipur.
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