Jaipur Day 2

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 requisite early start heading out to the Amber Fort and we made it with no crazy traffic interventions required.  Our admission price here reflected the now customary price discrimination towards foreigners but also a lack of foresight.  If you look closely at the entrance fees you will notice that they are indeed carved in stone.  Proving once again that the paintbrush is mightier than the chisel.

The Amber Fort is massive complex whose origins date from the 10th century and it's present state from the 16th century.  Upon first entrance we were greeted by the now familiar to us blowing whistle of the museum marshall.  This is the person charged with keeping the tourists from getting out of hand.

So large and labrinthine is it that we were able to find places where no one else was.  At one such time Tara and Riley proceeded to climb up on something that would surely earn a whistle if not a caning.  Mom was there to encourage it while I was anxiously trying to get them down before the guard approaching through a narrow walkway would be able to see them.  They did not quite get down in time.  The stern looking guard said a few things which we did not quite understand and it is then that we learned that no fort visit is compete without the requisite selfies for an official guard.




After the fort we had to pay a visit to the bazaar in the Pink City which is purportedly the biggest in India.  Big it was.  Blocks and blocks.

The girls rounded out our tour of the market district by getting henna and Patti once again lovingly frustrated the hard sell.  The push was not from the henna guy, he was going to get his money, but from his neighbor.  Every woman that sits down for some nice ink art must endure this guy.  He was pouring it on thick.  "Lady, you are the mom to these girls, you can be my mama too."  "I love Americans."  "50? You look to me 42!"     




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