Sylvia's Journal

An early rise allowed us to squeeze as much of Jaipur into our day that also included the ride back to Delhi (6.5 hours). Although also a prime tourist destination Jaipur did not quite feel the tourist trap that Agra is. Despite the chaos we felt right at home. Our hotel was in one of the restored houses of the well to do, a heritage hotel (15% of remodeling to become a hotel compliments of the federal government). The design and decoration reminded me of a computer program that allows you to drag any kind of architectural style onto a layout of a house, and a whole family got involved, each dragging that which he or she liked best, producing a hodgepodge house.

We did the usual tourist stuff: a picture of the Wind Palace where the court ladies could peek at normal town life from behind marble lattice work, a ride on an elephant into the Amber Fort. While waiting in line we met John of Dutch descent who now lives on Baffin Island in the far north of Canada. His ancestors came from Zwolle where Axel and I just passed by only a week ago.

He and his wife were a little on the heavy side and so, in order to distribute the weight evenly they had to lay nearly flat on the elephant seat. They flopped back and forth at each step of the elephant. It did not look like fun.

The whole world was at Amber Fort which made it rather crowded, even though it can hold a lot of people. After the fort we stopped for the obligatory picture of the Water Palace which also happened to be the focus of the kite festival that was celebrated that very day. There were dances and kite design exhibits, a 50 kite superkite that was hovering above us, a marching band and someone who looked like the last maharaja (an obese gentleman dressed in traditional clothes and with diamonds on his cheeks). Axel got to fly a kite and managed to get it cut down in 5 seconds.

Last stop was the Jantar Mantar which, our guide told us, produced the word jantra mantra which is the Indian version of abracadabra. I can’t quite remember the connection between a magician and the scientist who figured out the complex astronomical calculations, including the tilt of the earth and the distance to the equator.

We got the idea of the sundials but not the astrological equipment that determined the sign for each day and the signs of the zodiac in back of it. The only thing we did notice is that the Leo and the Sagitarius were right next to each other, just like the two of us.

After another excellent lunch we realized we were not going to get back to Delhi before nightfall. This worried me more than it worried Axel. Our guide claimed the road was excellent which it decidedly was not. It was probably the most uncomfortable and haried part of our trip and undid some of the vacation (and massage)-induced sense of relaxedness.

Thanks to our good driver and a lot of luck we made it safely back to Delhi. I did notice that Indian drivers have difficulty committing to lanes and so the weaving in and out of lanes was for them not weaving but simply hedging their bets. Our driver participated enthusiastically in this mad rush.

We had our driver drop us off at Connaught Place for a last Indian meal. After that, to complete the India experience, we rode back to the hotel in an auto-rickshaw (or baby taxi as I learned to call them in Bangladesh). And now it’s time to go home.