Jaipur and Amber Fort
Had a early start with a sandwich and a fruit lassi for breakfast, checked out and met my auto rickshaw driver from the day before and headed out to visit the Amber Fort, the biggest sight and normally the main reason for a visit to Jaipur. It's a little bit out of town and once we reached the outskirts where the roads weren't as congested, it we picked up the pace and was nice to have a heavy breeze through the rickshaw instead of the usual crawling through busy streets, horns blaring and dust in your eyes! I got my first glimpse of some camels by the roadside on the way and even past a few elephants swaying down the road and then saw the fort in the distance which was really quite impressive even from a afar. I was dropped off at the bottom of the fort and had a few options to travel up, jeep, elephant or foot. I chose the free option (the elephant sounded nice but was pricey buy indian standards and I knew I could probably find more worthwhile elsewhere). It was a really nice walk up the zigzagging path which, in the past, was used by the Maharaja's elephants to travel up and down to the fort in battle. When I reach the palace at the top I paid my entrance fee and walked into the main courtyard where I was immediately surrounded by a swarm of people pushing they're various wares (which included guide books, postcards and traditional Rajasthani puppets) in my face and shouting various prices, I just continued walking and shaking my head until they gave up and I had neared palace entrance. Inside the building was kept in great condition and I spent a good couple of hours getting lost in the countless passages and tiny stairways that weaves though the palace. There were also great views from the top and a beautiful herb garden which was still well maintained (at the time by a woman who wanted her picture taken but then asked for money after, no tipping said the signs around so no I didn't) and out of all the forts and palaces I had seen so far (and there were many!) the Amber Fort was by far my favourite as I could roam around freely and there was so much of it even though it was busy I could not see another tourist for 15 minutes at a time in the different rooms and passageways, it was also fun and easy to imagine what it was like in olden times!
After the fort I visited lake which had a really beautiful palace which appeared to be floating in the middle, unfortunately it was not open to visitors but very picturesque indeed. There I also met some children that wanted to sell me little bits of bread to feed the fish, again "for good karma". I then asked to be dropped off in the town centre near the zoo, because again I had, had to check out and it was only 1pm and there was still another 11 hours until my train to Jaisalmer and I love a Zoo I do! Unfortunately the Zoo is apparently closed every Tuesday (for reasons unknown to me) but I spent some time wandering around before walking 45 minutes back towards the more familiar area of town. There I found a nice air conditioned ice-cream parlour with a gigantic selection of flavours and varieties and ordered a pineapple ice-cream soda to cool me down. Did the trick and and headed back out to meet the shock of the heat and a very annoying puppet seller who just did not understand that no matter how much the puppet cost, I just did not want one so I eventually told him I hated his puppets and they're scary! It was well past lunchtime by this point so I found a nice place which had a good writeup in my guidebook and was reasonably priced but seemed to be frequented by a more affluent Indian clientele and like most places in India it seems, had a good selection of local specialities as well as some regional, some Chinese and some Italian pizza and pasta thrown in on the menu. I ordered some sort of potato burger which was ok but didn't taste of much washed down with an apple juice. The highlight of the meal was when I asked for the bill and I was then presented with a box with 2 compartment, one containing large sugar pieces and the other aniseed seeds and a teaspoon, I asked what it was and the man said "for fresh breath!" so I mixed a teaspoon with half sugar and half aniseed and popped it in my mouth, was really nice actually and was a good alternative to an after-eight I suppose!
I then walked all the way back to the hotel where I sat down to have a cold drink on the roof and also where I discovered I had obviously overlooked my legs when applying my sunblock this morning, a little too obvious for my liking as my legs seemed to be getting redder and redder!
At 6pm I got in a rickshaw again to head to a Rajasthani resort called Chokhi Dahni where I heard you could buy an entrance ticket which included dinner and an insight into old Rajasthani life. Turns out it was a little bit like the Indian version of storybook Glen although they did have camel and elephant rides and people demonstrating traditional song and dance but I felt incredibly out of place amongst the groups of older tourists and Indian families with little kids. The meal, a Royal Rajasthani Thali, was very good though and was served in a large dining hall and you were treated like you where the Maharaja and got a taste of how the royals lived. Again at the end of the meal I was presented with this 'mouth freshener' box this time with a larger selection of seeds mixed with sugar and dried berries!
After my royal dinner, it was back to the hotel and onward on another overnight train journey which left at midnight and was due to arrive in the desert town of Jaisalmer at midday the following day.