sayhitojohn

Cool Cash Finally...Watch Your Head applies Hmm So much for covering your load Magic Mobile Mushroom Stokes my inner Tolkien Your driver awaits you in the white car

Today, Sunday 1/30, was a road warrior day for family Huth.  We made the trek from Jaipur to Jodhpur in record time, 6 hours.  Our driver said that Sunday in India is a day off for the government and other types like bankers, etc., so it makes a fine day to drive.  The roads were busy in areas but not to bad overall. India is amazing!  Before this trip I would say China was the culture furthest from Western influence that I have visited, now India by takes that title hands down.  It is fascinating, even through the car window. For me the hours went by very quickly as there were so many interesting things to look at and so many stories to imagine.  Far too many to capture with the eye, let alone the lense.  I did snap a few pics out the front window but most of the action was out the side and not easily captured. Also, I am trying to be somewhat inconspicuous about my photography, while Patti is a teenaged girl at a Bieber show.  Tara and I are trying to help her find couth. We

We started Saturday the 29th with breakfast in the roof top restaurant of the place we are staying, the Pearl Palace Hotel. As we waited, the host was careful to point out the dangling tail of the rat that was making all the rukus in the ceiling above us.  Bon appetite. The food in India has been amazing, but of course I have been on low to medium level gastrointestinal distress alert since Dehli. Dehli Belly is what it is lovingly referred to as. I have long had weak plumbing even as far back as last century when I was working in London and could not even handle the somewhat bland food that I found there. I am hoping last night was some kind of peak to my distress. This is not even in the same category as my House Chi Mins revenge, I am able to keep this under control, at least so far.  I saw one poor lady at the Taj staring intently into a garbage can as if looking for something she lost, but I think readying herself to lose something she found. This time we did get the requi

Consumer Alert!  The wifi that we have been connecting to in India is unanimously the slowest we have ever used.  Given that, it has been a challenge to get images uploaded to accompany the posts.  So, yep, we are a bit behind.  On another note, Tara has become the official photographer of our trip but it will be some time until we can get her images up. ---- We spent 3 nights in the Pink City of Jaipur.  Pink is the designated color of Jaipur where other ciites have different colors.  The buildings on the main thoroughfare are required to be painted pink as is this one, the Palace of Winds.  There are nearly 1000 windows in this structure from which the unveiled royal women of the day we would observe the street life below unseen. We also visited the Jantar Mantar Observatory which was constructed in the early 1800's and has an incredible collection of sundials and other instruments for reading astronomical and astrological signs.  It houses the worlds largest stone sundia

Driving in India is about the most chaotic but friendly driving experience you can sit through. It seems generally efficient and although there can be some jams it continues to flow. The driver that we hired, Himraj, is a very nice guy and good driver overrall.  He is careful to go with the current most of the time, except for when he drives in exactly the opposite direction of traffic.  Our first experience with him was when he made a u-turn out of our parking space across four 'lanes' of traffic.  From the curb he just inched his way across the entire road, 90 degrees from the oncoming traffic, to a crescendo of horns.  Pretty funny. He is an active guy on the phone while driving which seems to be status quo that I have gathered when looking at the other drivers, including a guy with a horse drawn cart, face in phone.  I can tell when he has had a longer than usual driving attention deficit because he will look up suddenly and, quite reflexively, beep the horn even though

Even the trees are in on the honking action. No mistaken intent here. Power Water! Great Grandfather to Optimus Prime. Over speed and be prosecuted?  Better to just plain old speed. Do these booties make me look Elf?

Today we visited one of the most incredible manmade structures.  The Taj was built by a king for the tomb of his favorite wife and started in 1632.  The complex took 20 years with the hands of 20,000 craftsman and about $850USD million in todays currency.  I have seen the great churches in Europe, the pyramids in Cairo, the Forbidden City in Beijing, but I think the Taj takes the cake.  It is visually stunning in a way that pictures cannot do justice, though you need to check out Tara's images.  She brought her really nice camera and her eye for the shot along. Patti had originally scheduled us to get up at 0-dark-hundred, Patti getting up early, who would have imagined ;-). But as God would have it we were given a complimentary guide to Agra during our stay who changed our minds.  He was wondering what we planned to see in the morning fog :-).  Paying for our admission helped fund the making of the next Taj as the price for an Indian was about 70 cents and the price for a fore