The Hotel Pearl Palace was fantastic! It was such a relief after Delhi. Here, you could actually sit down and relax on a stunning rooftop, even if it did take forever for the drinks to come from downstairs! The peacock rooftop was extra special. Dinner was tasty and the Kingfisher beer, although expensive (around £3) was very much needed! We loved it so much here, and were so exhausted, that we decided not to continue onwards to Jaisalmer but to stay put.
When we were eventually ready to venture out of the hotel, Jaipur was still a Rajasthan city - dirty, chaotic and full of flies! If you stayed still for any more than a few seconds, you'd be covered in them! We got used to eating all our food with a side order of flies. However, Jaipur was great for sight seeing. We hired a tuktuk for the day for 320Rs. Our driver was called Muna. We saw all the famous landmarks, but in reality they weren't actually as good as the photos!
It was lovely to see the peacocks at the City Palace. However, the 'noble' atmosphere was somewhat dampened when Bill and I lost each other for an hour. We have very different approaches to the free audio guides. I get bored after the introduction whereas Bill rewinds every section 10 times until he's memorised every little detailed piece of information. We had a private puppet show. I can't say I was overwhelmed by the puppetry but the music was atmospheric.
We nearly didn't get into any of the monuments as we were told our 1000Rs note was fake. However, after a lot of arguing, Bill eventually got it accepted at the ticket booth for the Tantar Mantar. This was arguably the world's most boring heritage sight! I have nothing else to say about it and admit my ignorance on astrology and such things!
Next stop was the Amber Fort. We were too late to ride an elephant up (needs to be before 10am) but that was a good thing. I didn't like the thought of going up steep steps on an elephant! The Amber Fort was superb. We were lucky because not only was it the only clear day of our holiday but it was a Sunday, the day when all of India visits their historic monuments in all their finest. The women in their bright and colourful costumes were simply dazzling. I couldn't keep my eyes off them! They were staring at me and I was staring right back! The architecture was amazing. On the way back, we visited a few shops but didn't buy anything.
In the evening, Muna took us to see the sunset at the Monkey Temple. The flies were even worse in the evening and had a real foot fetish! The Monkey Temple soon turned into one of the highlights of our trip, though it could've very easily been the most traumatic! We were sitting by the temple, waiting for the sunset and were joined by several monkies. A monkey sat itself next to Bill on a rock. The photos tell the rest! I thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole scenario though the camera lense!
This time, we easily booked tickets for our next port of call - the overnight bus to Jodhpur. We still had a day to wander Jaipur, so we headed for the old town to do some shopping. We ended up with nothing! Far too much effort buying anything in India, especially as the whole bartering palava heightens my husband's instincts to keep tight hold of every penny or ruppee! He wasn't happy unless he thought he was paying the same price as an Indian - impossible! In general, they'd tell you 20 X the price. We had no way of knowing how much things were really worth, so we just didn't bother. Most things were covered in layers of dust anyway.
We headed back to the Pearl Palace to spend our last hours in Jaipur sipping cold mint drink on the rooftop. We met Gayle, a fellow traveller and we all decided to head to Chawdi Dowk in the evening (a cultural village and performance) before we needed to catch our bus. It took ages to get there and the place was extremely bizarre on arrival. They insisted that we left our cameras at the desk. Bill was having none of that! As more people arrived and the lights went down, it turned into a kind of Rajasthani Disney! They weren't the best or the most energetic of performers, but they did manage to get me up and dancing! We had a traditional Rajasthani meal with never-ending courses. The bowls were made of leaves and we had to sit down on carpets and cushions to eat. Not the most comfortable of meals with aching legs and leaking bowls but parts of it were tasty! Gayle, however was feeling very poorly. It got worse and worse until we decided she needed to see a doctor. So, we had our visit to an Indian doctors! By some miracle, we did manage to get back in time for our bus (just!) The sleeper bus was another truly disgusting experience. The bed was covered in layer upon layer of dust and dirt as if it had never been cleaned. Didn't make for the best night's sleep!