Jaipur - Pink city of shopping

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the delayed post,it became quite a mission to find a proper internet connection in Jaipur as well as Punjab,the latter being because we were quite busy meeting relatives,more on that in a bit.

So it looks like we last left you at the camel safari? Well just after that we managed to make our way from Jaislamer (by overnight train) to Jaipur. The journey itself was nothing spectacular as it was mostly at night and in the desert its pitch black outside as soon as the sun sets,the interesting bit about the journey is that if you aren't in one of the AC classes,your cabin is sure to fill up with sand along the way,just as we noticed halfway thru our journey when the entire car began to look like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia,sand everywhere and in the air,it was like a sandstorm except it was in the train and minus the camels...

But all ended well and we were arrived in Jaipur at about 5 in the morning. We were eventually picked up by the owner of the hotel we were supposed to be staying at,Hotel Krishna and we checked in at about 5.45,slept off our previous journey and woke up at about 10 am. The interesting thing about our hotel was that we ate breakfast on the lawn outside,which was a rarity in the entire Indian region so far,most places we'd eaten at were either on the top of roofs or indoors.so it was a nice change from the norm, to have some green around you. after breakfast we ventured out into the town.Jaipur is made up of one main street (MI road)(not for mission impossible thou...it meant Muhammed Ismael or something like that, but it was a Mission Impossible getting from one side to another) and on the northern side of this road was the Old City,which is a fort, and on the southern side the new city lay sprawled across the lands. we began our trek up MI road from the beginning of it where I saw a mall and thought it would be good to do some shopping in something i was more familiar with i.e a mall.that was not the case thou as we soon found out, the mall looked nice and posh from the outside and as we entered i was checked by security for bombs and guns and stuff,but when we got inside...there were about 3 shops that were open...and the rest had things in them but were run down and shabby and mostly closed.of the three stores that were open thou,there wasn't much on sale so we decided to leave and find something else to do, we found another mall but it was equally as bad,maybe even worse as this one had a lady charging people to use their escalator...but it was an empty mall with 4-5 shops open...so...by then we had decided that malls in rajasthan aren't that good.
allittle bit up MI road we stopped for a snack at the peacock hotel which is a really eccentric place in a housing area which had interesting artsy chairs which looked like they were made by someone who had been given too much encouragement for his artsy side,nonetheless it was an interesting place and the decoration was a nice change from the dusty streets downstairs. we carried on walking and checked out a bunch of interesting stores at the sides of the road,i bought a book to read and some magazines as well,and by then it was pretty late so we had some dinner and began to proceed home again.as we left we decided to take one of those cycle rickshaws back....bad idea...especially after eating...for some strange reason we got one with a driver who had a bung leg...so he had a very different and strange way of cycling his bike.and a very slow was too.of course it didn't help that we had just put on a couple of extra kg's from dinner.but it took about 1.5 hours to get back to the hotel.not to mention the MOST bumpy ride we've had so far(not helping my already bruised bottom from the camels)and everything from people in vans and jeeps to people on foot seemed to be passing us.we felt so sorry for him but he insisted on taking us so...heh
the next day we spent most of the day inside the actual fort,exploring the many streets to see each and every bazaar there was,each with its own speciality,one for clothes,one for books,one for vegetables and fruits,one for paints,men's suits,wedding stuff,gold,silver,food,spices,teas,household needs and things like that. but the old city inside the fort was designed using a grid like formation following an old Indian-feng shui technique which architects back in the day used for their cities. its impressive and relatively easy to navigate. BTW the entire city is a peachy red colour which for them is actually pink. hence the pink city. here we also managed to see the Hawa Mahal (made for the womenfolk in the kings harem), Jantar Mantar (for astrology) and a great number of temples here and there in the city. we also made our way up to the sun temple at the eastern side of the city.amazing sunset views from there because you can see the sun setting on the western side of the city casting an impressive reddish glow onto an already pinkish city and from there you can actually admire the vastness of the capital of rajasthan - Jaipur.
oh and on the way down from the temple, we got to feed monkeys, (or get attacked by monkeys) pigs, and even a cow and some goats. then on the next day we began our journey to Punjab - the land of the Saint Soldiers and my homeland.

Here are some pics from Jaisalmer when we did our Camel Safari and the most recent one's from Jaipur as well.