Dear Acquaintances,

We arrived in Jaipur at 6pm on Thursday night. Our hotel is the Tree of Life and is located a bit outside the city, and then about 10 minutes up a dirt/sort of paved road up into a rural village in absolutely the middle of nowhere. We were greeted by about 10 staff, but quickly noticed that we didn't see any other guests. I asked, and it turns out that there are 3 other guests currently at the hotel. Between the 5 of us we have 3 ridiculous large and very very nice villas (out of 8 in the whole hotel!).

Soon after arriving we gathered in one of our rooms and were visited by the head chef (the only chef) to "discuss" the evening's menu - "Menu created by executive chef for the Kennett Family". As it began to get dark, I began to realize that I was going to sleep alone in my villa, which became more and more unsettling when I thought of more and more things that could jump/climb over the fence and come into my room. I was openly wishing that I had Simon to share the room with me!

Before I start on the day's activities, I would like to share a story from 2 days ago in Agra that has only been recently approved by the censorship committee. We visited a marble shop/factory where we were given a demonstration of how gems and stones were inlaid into pieces of marble. After the demonstration we were taken downstairs to the showroom for the obligatory sales pitch. Antony and I were near each other in the back of the room, when one of the men who worked their approached us. He began by saying that his English wasn't very good, but he was very happy when he had the opportunity to speak and learn with foreigners. The conversation began harmlessly enough, but then he asked if he could ask me a personal question. I said sure why not and he asked me if it was OK in Canada to have sex in public. Antony and I were obviously quite taken aback. I responded by telling him that in private was more appropriate. I then muttered something and looked across the room with pretended interest and left poor Antony to fend for himself. When we left the store, Antony now had a very weird look on his face, almost as though he had just been violated. When we asked him what happened in the van, he said that the man showed him a video of a naked woman on his phone!

This morning we visited the City Palace of Jaipur which is home to the Maharaja of Rajistan (Basically the king of the state). Outside the main gate there were dozens of men set up selling fresh nuts as food to be fed to the mass of pigeons gathered in "Pigeon Square". We tossed food and it is meant to be good luck. It was very fun.

Next we headed to the observatory which had all sorts of instruments that had been built ages ago to help tell time, astrology etc. I felt just like I did in High School science… completely lost. Antony however has prepared a full explanation of what it all was. He is also preparing a 64 page thesis on why it is all wrong, scientifically invalid, and why no one will ever convince him otherwise.

This afternoon was a big one for Lucy. She had her first full Indian meal (Curry, Dal, eggplant, naan), had henna tattooed on her hand, and had her palm read by a palm reader. He said that she would be very career focused until 25 and then love would come into her life. Lisa was very happy with this result!

The weather was way better today - Sunny and about 17… but it goes down to around 0 at night. We are all having a great time. More tomorrow.