Started the day with a trip to Jantar Manter, (great name, let alone anything else), an astronomical observatory built by the cities founder, Jai Singh. Pretty impressive place, will have to wait for the pics to see!! We were then taken to the city palace, once home of the Maharaja, where we saw some of his outfits (pretty big chap!), weapons his cavalry used to use - some pretty nasty stuff, and the throne room (no, not the toilet). Learnt a few interesting facts here, Jaipur is a big Polo playing region, and when they used to play in the evenings when it was darker, they used a special night polo ball, which is about 6" across and has a rotating platform inside which they would place a candle in to light the ball. Not convinced how it worked but I'm no engineer! If I had room in my case I would have bought one as quite an interesting talking point.....the other fact was around the chandelier hung in the throne room, which is apparently 5 tons. To test the ceiling could hold it, they stood 3 elephants on the roof for 15 days, clearly was strong enough as its still there now!
The evening was right up there with spotting the tiger (not quite as good but not far!!) We went to an IPL cricket match, Rajasthan Royals verses the Kolkatta Knight Riders. Let's just say one of best sporting events I've been to (in terms of atmosphere). I've never been to a cricket match before so that in itself was a great experience, but the reception we got was phenomenal! When we arrived there was a lot of cheering which we assumed was for the players and cheerleaders, got seats in an area in front of the main seating and was given a packed lunch! The match itself was fab, lots of cheering for both sides (although our end were supporting the Royals, there were a few Indian players on the other team which meant when a decent ball was bowled, hit or fielded by either team there was a massive cheer, standing on chairs and dancing!!). Back to the welcome, we first realised it was for us, when Cerie and I went to get a drink which resulted in a huge cheer and clapping from the crowd watching us!!! End of the match resulted in a good win for "our" team, the Royals, with more dancing on chairs and then we went to leave. Wow, I felt like a celeb, we had people taking photos, trying to grab us, and give us high fives!! Although undoubtedly won't get the same reaction from the crowd, will definately be going to a 20/20 match in the UK , brilliant fun!
Returned to the hotel for a few beers and Cathy kindly let me upload my photos to her IMac for back up, all in all a pretty fab day :)