Bye Bye India

May 24 - Jaipur

We started the morning with a very fun elephant ride at the Amber Fort outside of Jaipur. The Fort is from the 11th and 12th centuies while the palace was built in the 15th and 16th centuries. The palace there was very interesting in that it employed some slick engineering to keep the royal family comfortable and cool. There were drains built into all surfaces of the palace so that whenever it rained the water drained into three reservoirs. The first reservoir was for watering the gardens, the second for cleaning and the third for the family to use. Each tank had some sort of filtration system so by the time the water got to the third tank it was pretty clean and sediment free. Rain water also collected into a pool for the family's use and the water from there was also used to water the garden. On the top floor in the "summer palace" they had misting systems set up outside the main rooms to keep them cool in the hot India summer. The government plans to use the original water reservoirs to bring water to the city below as it has capacity to provide water for 10,000 people. Pretty interesting stuff considering when the palace was built. The palace interior is also stunning...the decorative painting is beautiful as are some of the rooms with mirrored and jeweled walls.

That morning we also stopped by the Palace of Wind, which Jaipur is famous for. It is pink just like all of the other buildings there (thus, Jaipur is known as the "pink city"). The Palace of Wind is actually just a facade and not a real palace. It was built for the concubines and other women of the palace so they could see how the common people lived. They took an interest in what the people did and how they acted during parades and other events so this gave them an opportunity to watch without being seen.

After the sight-seeing we went to some factories and showrooms to see some of the local handicrafts and trades. We checked out a couple gem stores, a blue pottery store and a textile shop. The textile shop was most interesting as we could watch the men doing the block printing, where they hand stamp patterns. They have large stamps that they use and one guy goes behind another with a different color - usually about 4 or 5 colors in total.

We got back to the hotel in the late afternoon and spent a couple hours hanging out at the pool. While we were there we got a good show from a couple of peacocks. One of the males was trying to woo a lady peacock and was flaunting his feathers and wiggling his butt. About 5 minutes into the show another male came running after him. We were hoping for a fight but Mr. Butt Wiggler just ran away. Anyway, we enjoyed the show.

In the evening we made our way back to central Jaipur to visit the local bazaar. It was an experience...lots of shoes and clothes for sale in tiny shops that lined the streets. Most of the items were things that the locals would buy and we weren't seeing too much that we wanted. After we had sweated enough we headed to an air-conditioned restaurant to get our fill of tandoori and naan for dinner.

May 25 - Jaipur to Delhi

We had a long car ride back to Delhi - about 7 hours so we headed out around 10am. On the way out of town we stopped to see a baby elephant. It would have been really nice, but the poor thing was chained up. Such a sad sight. As we were leaving town we saw the early stages of a protest. There were young men congregating to protest a system similar to affirmative action.

Right after leaving town we saw about 100 monkeys on the side of the road, including lots of babies, so we had to pull over and take some pictures. The babies had the most adorable little faces. Someone had been feeding them bananas so it was funny to watch them peel them just like a human would.

The rest of the ride back was less eventful, although we did pass a few overturned cargo trucks. We saw quite of few of them throughout our trip so I would guess that they are not well maintained and have mechanical failures, not to mention avoiding the tuk tuks could cause accidents as well. We stopped at McDonald's for lunch and they had no beef. All of the sandwiches were fish, chicken or veggie and the Big Mac was a "Chicken Maharaja Mac" which was essentially a chicken curry sandwich. The french fries were darn good.

On the way back into Delhi we stopped at a silk shop and I finally found some silk that I like for bag making. I got a few meters for samples and we'll see if anything pans out there. The boys also decided to get suits made....never would have thought we would have done that but the price was right and they had nice cashmere fabric.

May 26 - Delhi

Rob and Ilsa left early in the morning to head to the Himalayas to go trekking. Matt and I were lazy and slept in, then did email for a while. The whole computer thing is pretty frustrating in India as the power goes out frequently and you lose any work that hasn't been saved. Not fun.

In the afternoon Matt had to have his fitting for his new suit and that went well. They delivered it later on to the hotel. I spent quite a bit of the afternoon working on the blog and trying to get more pictures posted - it's a big job, especially with the sloooow computers. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I can get caught up on the pictures but it probably won't happen in St. Petersburg, where we are now, because the internet is expensive! In fact, I'm about to get kicked off now so I've got to wrap things up.

Hope all is well on the homefront. We miss everyone!