We arrived in Jaipur and checked into a lovely heritage hotel (Shahpura House). That evening we visited the Birla Lakshmi Narayan Temple, at the foot of the Moti Dungri Fort, at sunset (don't worry no more sunset photos!).

The next day, we overslept, as Laura set the alarm wrong - oops! So we had to rush up to the Amber Fort, to join the growing hoards of tourists for our elephant ride to the top. The Amber Fort, built in 1592 by Maharaja Man Singh, was fantastic and even though there were lots of people, the place was big enough to get lost in with loads of corridors that were like mazes. There were no guides, or a set route, so we were able to just wonder around ourselves, which was loads of fun!!

We then passed the Jal Mahal (Water Palace) that is built in the middle of a lake, which is apparently going to become a palatial hotel! We stopped off at Jewel Star, where we were shown how gems and precious stones are cut, shaped and polished. We were then quickly taken to the shop to see the finished products! Afterwards, we visited Anokhi to see how the traditional Rajistani textiles were made, from dying to block printing and from embroidery to tailoring. We were both looking to buy some clothes from India and so decided to get them hand made here. We looked through hundreds of different fabrics and patterns and chose our favourites - apparently we have excellent, but expensive, taste! We chose some vintage sarees that were around 20-30 years old (although the man didn't see this as a selling point and knocked the price down, but we thought this was more interesting!!) that were turned into our chosen style of top. As we couldn't decide on one, we decided to have two each!

We headed to the City Palace in the afternoon, where the son of the last Maharaja still lives (we passed on your phone number Mum!). Then it was over the road to see Jantar Mantar observatory which was begun in 1728 and is largest of the 5 that were built by Jai Singh. It looked like lots of big monuments, but all were (and are) used to measure positions of heavenly bodies and the like!

After dinner at the hotel, we were treated to a puppet show, for just the two of us, as the other diners managed to escape! It was really funny - and as we were the only ones we had to make sure we laughed and clapped really loud!