Jaipur's construction began in 1727 and was completed just 8 years later. It was the first city in India to be built according to the town planning principles in "Shilpa Shastra", an ancient treatise on architecture. There were nine neighborhoods divided an named according to the commodity and caste who lived there. Today, these divisions are much less apparent.

We arrived in Jaipur in the late morning after a train ride turned very uncomfortable because I was still ill from the food in Agra. We found a hotel quickly and I slept for most of the afternoon. When i eventually got up, we walked to the post office to mail some post cards and stopped to grab some food. Since Indian food had made me so sick, I really didn't feel like eating it so when we saw a McDonald's we stopped and grabbed a Maharaja trio, the Indian version of the Big Mac with the beef replaced by chicken. It was the only item on the menu that was not advertised as very spicy! The meal was what you would expect from McDonald's but it did not make me feel worse. The next few days I also spent in bed with a few afternoon trips outside of our hotel. Finally, after three days, I felt well enough for us to do some real sightseeing. We hired a rickshaw driver for the day, to accelerate the transportation between the sights, and to see as much of Jaipur as quickly as possible.

Our first stop was at the Amber Fort, which is more of a palace than a fort. It is naturally elevated and receives protection from the Aravalli Hills upon which it is built. The inside of the fort was very impressive, especially the "palace of mirrors", which was a room decorated with mirrors and gems all inlaid into the marble resembling a giant jewel box. The fort was a huge palace with many hidden halls and secret rooms. Jaipur is nicknamed the "pink city" because most of the buildings are painted a terra cotta color, but we were quite disappointed to see that the view from the fort didn't show the pink city that we were expecting.

Our next stop was at a block printing factory where they showed us the process and the workers working. It was an interesting and informative stop, however it was followed by a tour of the factory's store where we were shown the many items we could purchase. Though we told the salesman that we weren't interested in buying duvet covers, he insisted on simply showing them to us so we agreed. Once he had shown us a dozen covers, he declared that he would remove them one by one and we would discuss the price of the ones we liked. We reminded him that we weren't interested in buying the covers, but again at his insistence, we were forced to say no to all twelve duvet covers. When asked if we thought they were nice, we replied that we did but that we simply didn't need any, to which his reply was always a comment about how much we would
pay for something similar in our country an how cheap it is to buy it in India. They don't seem to understand the concept of finding something nice but not buying it! Next came the scarves and a very long two hour shopping experience during which Marco bought scarves for his family and was almost convinced to buy a tailor made dress shirt that he truly didn't need! Indian salesmen are not very good at listening to what their customers want.

We finally made it out of the store and headed to the Monkey Temple to watch the sunset. We bought some peanuts from the local children and slowly made our way up the mountain to the temple. On our way up, we encountered hundreds of monkeys, a few goats that chewed at my scarf an a few cows. All the way up, the monkeys gathered around us and held out their hands for peanuts. Most of them were very gentle and took the nuts straight from our hands, but there were a few greedy ones that took the offered peanut and then grabbed at the bag of peanuts! The view from the mountain-top temple was beautiful. On our way down, Marco pet calf that he had given a few peanuts to on our way up. The mother, standing not too far, did not appreciate this and as Marco passed her, she kicked his leg with her hind leg. Thankfully, he was not seriously injured and he has been more cautious with cows ever since!

Our day of sightseeing in Jaipur was overall very pleasant and much easier than if we had tried to walk or find our own way from monument to monument. Our next stop was Pushkar.