After our slow start here in Jaipur, I didn't expect us to actually see everything we were supposed to. Luckily, I was proven wrong.
We went down for breakfast at 0700, luckily we didn't have to have our bags packed or anything yet we just had to be up. After eating we hit the road, and I was pleasantly surprised that we were actually pretty close to on time. Our first stop was Amber Fort, and low and behold there were elephants!!!! You could either ride in a jeep up the hill from the parking to the fort, or an elephant. Who would ever opt for the jeep?! I know there's probably some animal cruelty in there, but they really honestly weren't hitting them or anything just making them walk up and down the hill. Oh and wear face paint, the elephants definitely had their faces and trunks painted. I don't think they minded though. I shared my elephant with a girl named Bethany from England, and we had a great time trying to stay inside our little cart on his back. We were the first elephant to get up the hill, so we had to wait for everyone. Being first, this also means we were exposed to the harassing street vendors the longest (this will be important later). The fort was awesome and everyone was in a great mood because it wasn't hot yet and it was honestly just a fabulous morning. The fort is beautiful, it has separate palaces for the different seasons (Summer, Winter, Monsoon; not exactly the same ones we have today). One was covered in mirrors so when the moon and stars shine they were magnified in beauty. Our tour guide used his cell phone light to mimic the effect and all the walls and ceiling twinkled so bright!
So, leaving Amber Fort, we saw a snake charmer, which was cool, and shortly after, I ran into Tony. Tony was one of the street merchants that I blew off earlier and told him I would look at his silk paintings after because I didn't want to carry them around. Mistake #1: lying to get them to go away. I should have been straight forward, because he stalked me out afterwards, yelling at me about how I promised to look and he waited for me and I said I would buy 10 and now I don't want 5 I only want 1. Mistake #2: leading them to believe you're interested at all. When he first told me his prices, I thought he was speaking in rupees, so I was like omg I'm stealing from this guy, 10 rupees each give me all you got! No, he meant USD, so now I don't want any. But because I didn't clarify that before, he thought I was actually going to buy them. I told him no, other people yelled at him to go away, he would not leave me alone. I shouldn't have gave in, but it was beginning to get border line creepy and pathetic that I couldn't get to our bus in peace, so I finally bought a stupid painting. We agreed on 250 rupees. Well, naturally, I gave him 500, because it was the only bill I had. He pocketed it and tried to shove another painting in my hand and run away. I was so fuming pissed at this point I was screaming at him, give me my change or take your stupid painting back and give me my rupees (it's not the $2 I care about its the principle of this whole annoying thing) so he finally gave me 200 back, swears he didn't have another 50, but 300 is a good price so I should be happy. It took all my strength to not give him the finger or slap him because seriously he just harassed me for 25 minutes, but then I realized 80 cents is not worth the aggravation this Tony character was giving me so I just stormed away. Then, Camille and I get in the jeep to bring us back down the hill to the bus, and now that other street vendors saw me buy something, they literally throw things at me trying to grab my money. Again, shouldn't have done this, but I just really wanted them to go away so I bought from. 2 - one with our pictures on the elephant and another with random junk I don't need but can donate as an IPSF fundraiser for school. Well, buying didn't work because more came and threw things at me and the ones I already bought from three more stuff on me trying to get more money and it was basically horrible. One of the RC saw our ambush and came over to save us and put us in the correct keep to our bus. I was so thankful for him. The people were literally running with the jeep trying to get us to buy more (get the hint people we are in a moving jeep!) but at least it wasn't just after me this time, the jeep was crammed with like 8 of us. We made it safely to the bus and were on our way. They took us then to a "non-tourist" place to go shopping "where all the Indians shop." Okay yeah. Right. This place was so darn expensive and just happened to have other tour groups coming and going and had convenient demos to show us how everything is made and everyone spoke perfect English. Mhmm okay yeah I definitely believe that. This is the second time this has happened. It was quite annoying, because shopping in a bazar is something everyone wants to do but instead they bring us to these places. Enough of the girls complained that they said we would have time later, and we did.
After lunch we went to Albart Hall, which is an old government building turned museum with foreign art and stuff like that, a mummy that was cool. But it wasn't really my vibe, so I was quite glad we were only there for 30 minutes. From there we went to Maharaja's City Palace, which was really cool because it was one of the first monuments that was completely open and we could explore all the corridors and rooms and things. There were multiple museums inside, one of which - what do you know was another expensive shop. A few of the girls snapped (over shopping, it's kind of funny because it's so unimportant but we do all have gifts we need to buy for people) and were like that's it we're not staying here. So they released us to shop in the stores right outside he palace. It was like a mini bazar and everything was suuuuuper cheap. I got almost all of my shopping done there. Got lots of tshirts and scarfs and other gifts.
Once our time for shopping was up, we headed to the train station. We had loaded our luggage in the bus at lunch time so we were good to go. We had a bit of a wait at the station - 2ish hours, but that's okay because it's better than missing the train. I changed into some comfortable clothes, took out my contacts, grabbed some chips and a coke (normal food yes! Don't even care if it's junk food) and prepared for the train ride. It's 17ish hours, but overnight so I can sleep, and I downloaded Life on my iPad so we can play, because last time we really wished we had games to play. I really don't mind the train, I actually kind of enjoy the strangeness of the gross 3-tiered sleeping arrangements. When I wake up we will be in Amristar!
Namaste!