So, the next morning, we were up early and on our way for one more day of touring. Jaipur is known as the Pink City. It is a thoughtfully planned city, built for expansion. It was painted pink by one if the kings to welcome the Prince of Wales. It seems the royalty of Jaipur had good relations with the British.
Our first stop was the Amber Fort. We rode an elephant to the top! I'm starting to think our trip around the world should have a theme and that theme should be animals or how many animals we can ride around the world... It would be unique.
We walked through the courtyards, admiring the incredible halls. I don't think this fort was ever abandoned, so many of it's ornaments remain intact as opposed to the other forts we saw.
When we left, we drove by the Summer Palace. It sits in the middle of a lake using the water to cool the hot summer air. I loved that palace. The water was disgusting, but the palace looked spectacular.
After this we went to Monkey Temple. It is a Hindu temple that was built on a spring. Hindus come here to bathe in the spring as atonement. The bath is nestled in a valley and as you walk up monkeys play along the temple. People sit along the stairs asking for money, there was a snake charmer waiting for tourists to come along to impress with his cobra. At the top people just stripped down and dipped into the water, our guide just waved us onto the platform. We were clearly the only non-Hindus there and it felt a bit personal to just stand around the bathers.
The best part about the temple were the groups of women in their colorful saris sitting in the shade. They come once a week, bathe, atone sins, do some laundry and then talk with one another (I got the sense that the socializing was the most important part of these weekly visits.) It was lovely.
Also, there were cows with legs growing out of their backs. I'm not making that up.
We also visited the City Palace. We learned that there are many small kingdoms all over India. The current king of Jaipur is only 16! He was in that palace somewhere.
That concluded our official Golden Triangle tour. Since then, we've been relaxing in our home stay. We had a cooking demonstration, found a cafe that seems to cater to expatriates and had amazing western food- we ate a salad!! (So far no "Delhi Belly," so I think it must have been washed in well-filtered water.) We've learned that an Indian coffee shop does not guarantee wifi, we've taken a tuk-tuk and we've enjoyed English-speaking tv shows.
Tomorrow morning we head to Kerala, known as God's Own Country. I'm hoping for green land, fresh air and clean space. We'll see what southern India brings...
