Incredible India-- Jaipur

One thing the tour itinerary didn't make clear was that it would take EIGHT hours to travel 150 miles between the cities we were visiting.  The traffic, livestock and people walking along the side of the road, and poor road conditions made it impossible to drive fast. 

We started our day in Jaipur with a photo stop at the so-called "Palace of the Winds", which was built in 1799. The original intention of the series of over 950 lattice windows was to allow royal ladies to observe everyday life in the street below without being seen.

Next we headed out of town to visit the Amber Fort, built in the 1590's.

The fort is built on the top of a hill, and the mode of transportation to go up to the fort is via elephant.

I'm pretty positive this was our first time riding an elephant.

It was a scenic ride, with a lake and some rolling hills to look at.

These gardens were out in the middle of the lake.

The fort was more like a palace on the inner court, with some of the most lovely inlaid mosaic designs I've ever seen.  It reminded Kent and me of the Alhambra Palace we saw in Granada, Spain many years ago.

We didn't take a picture of it, but the way down from the fort was via jeep.  This snake charmer was set up outside the tourist buses to perform for the tourists.

This elephant was just plodding along the road as the bus headed back out to the main road.  We also saw camels, donkeys and horse carts on the roads as we traveled from city to city.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch, and these cows were just leisurely standing in the middle of the road outside of the restaurant.  Kent couldn't resist getting his picture taken with them.

This was a common sight--men sleeping on their bicycle rickshaws.

Some of the colorful vegetables for sale along the street in the city.

That evening Kent went on an optional tour to a Hindu Temple,

 while I went shopping with the Andrews at a mall about a mile from our hotel.  We walked to get to the mall, but decided to take an auto rickshaw to get back to the hotel.

I'll admit I hadn't heard of the Amber fort before we signed up for this tour, but the interior palace was one of the loveliest buildings I've seen in all our travels throughout Europe and Asia. The pictures from our puny point-and-click camera don't do it justice at all.