Golden Tulip Jaipur

... br>we eventually fell over it - it was of course right in the middle of everything and we had walked past it about 20 times on different walkways and didn't see it from above - oh well. It is here that I must confess that I thought that India had shown me everything with the Taj, this one room showed me just how wrong I was. The photographs again cannot do justice to what is such a thing of beauty. All the patterns you can see are made up of shaped ...

... only scribble on their chalk boards, unable to say much and are left behind. The aim of the school is to get the older children to a level that they may gain a place at state school. But, at the moment, it's hard to say how successful they will be. Amita has mentioned how some weeks children don't turn up; for even months on end. The reasons I'm not sure. But when you find out the children supplement their families income by collecting plastic bottles from ...

... police!<br><br><br><br>Jaipur was HOT, so I just spent a lot of time lazy sight-seeing.<br>Jaipur's a really pretty town with pink walls surrounding it and lots<br>of pink buildings. It's full of palaces and forts as well. My first day<br>I went to the Palace of the Winds which had its own natural air<br>conditioning! and was the place where the maharajah used to keep his<br>women, the massive Amber Fort and the City Palace which is in the<br>Guiness ...

... you pay"? I learned more about the Indian psyche when a group of guys called me over from the hotel we were staying. They were all huddled around a pot cooking mutton on a coal burner in the middle of a room. It was late in the evening and we had just finished dinner so declining to share another meal was hard to do. Trying to make conversation, I enquired if they were Muslim or Hindus and Pannu replied "it doesn't matter-we are all friends". I learned ...

Ja, das ist schon ein Ding... man hat das Gefuehl, man erlebt alles im Zeitraffer. Vorgestern waren wir noch in Delhi. In Agra waren wir nur uebr Nacht und wir wollten eigentlich das Taj Mahal sehen... leider fiel das aus wegen Nebel :-) Wirklich, es war so ziemlich gar nichts zu sehen. Sehr beeindruckend. Ich bin wirklich froh, dass ich noch einmal die Chance habe, es zu sehen, wenn ich in vier, fuenf Wochen noch einmal dorthin komme. Aber, es ...

... in Bangalore and elsewhere. But there is no mid-range. They don't know how to do it; the mid-range tourism here has far too many of the fleapit and shoestring traits to be called decent, and far too few touches of luxury to warrant that extra star or two. It's confusing, but my advice is this: if you come to India, do it the pricey way or else slum it entirely. Everything in between messes too much with the expectations. Tomorrow, we do the rest of Jaipur's sights.

... way and continue to set industry benchmarks for Heritage Hotels in India. As always happens though, our lives and businesses change, after countless visits to Samode Palace over so many years, I felt my customers needed an alternative. Just as I was about to write off Samode Palace, I ran into Chhotté Sardar at his residence, which is ...

... They took me around to each murti and talked to me about them. I went back to the Mandir later on for arthi. It was awesome! They had the prayers aplified on the street with loudspeakers. They rang bells and banged a gong. I got to sit inside the mandir for the whole thing! I will be going back tomorrow. So, yeah, something pretty great happened today. Yippy!!!

... There is another game with amazing peacock images... You can also see the private residence (Chandra Mahal) of the current maharaja from here. Next stop was to walk around the corner and see behind the scenes of Hawa Mahal - the Palace of the Winds. There was a load of bamboo scaffolding at the rear entrance and its quite run down behind the pretty facade but we did climb to the top to check out the views of the street below, the city palace ...

... our room is amazing. We're about seven floors up and we we can see across the city for miles to the surrounding mountains. (We were told the name of the mountain range, but can't remember now) From our room, we can see a traffic circle/rotary and many high-rises, a park, and lots of other buildings. Brent has been gazing down to the street commenting on the horrible drivers. (I just took a video) Horns honking is a constant sound; really ...