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Exploring Rajasthan
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The journey to Jaipur from Agra involved a 7 hour train ride. I rode in air conditioned chair class, which was comfortable enough. The hotel in Jaipur arranged a cab to pick me up and I got to the hotel around 2 AM due to my train running a bit late. The hotel was pretty nice; it had a walled in lawn and courtyard and clean, comfortable rooms with TVs all for around $30/night.
Jaipur is a city of over 2 million, and it reminded me a bit of a mini Delhi. The streets were packed and the traffic was heavy with horn blowing being the most popular pastime. It was hot during the day, but cool at night. I didn't see too many tourists during my time there. I visited an ancient astronomy site, the City Palace, a couple of havelis (intricately carved sandstone buildings), and a large fort outside town. The highlight was the astronomy site known as Jantar Mantar. It featured 2 sun dials (one a few stories high), ancient star maps on large metal discs, and structures used to track the phase of the Zodiac calendar and to monitor the position of the sun relative to the Earth. Most of the astronomical structures were big and everything was laid out in a park like setting. I think I bought too much into the pre-trip hype I read about the city since most of the tourist attractions I visited were average to be honest. Another part of it could be that for what I had to put up with in "headaches" (long travel time, air pollution, noise pollution, dirty, crowded streets, etc) the tourist attractions would have to be spectacular to make it worthwhile.
Jaipur had many, many small shops selling items ranging from bangles (bracelets) to silks to everyday pots and pans. Each little shop specialized in one type of merchandise. Many of the shopkeepers seem to think I'm Spanish and they call out to me with "Hola, amigo!". I get the feeling that this isn't the time of year most Americans visit Rajasthan, since most of the people seem surprised by my nationality. Something that I didn't expect is that CitiBank has branches in many Indian cities including Jaipur. The food in Jaipur was excellent. I had dinner one night in a revolving restaurant at the top of the highest building in town (14th floor) that gave great views of the city. Even for a meal at a fancy restaurant like this my total bill was under $10. There was also a good ice cream parlor called Raj Mahal that served up solid ice cream sundaes - I went there twice.
After a couple of days I was ready to move on and I secured a train ticket on to Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan without too much difficulty. So now I'm going there... More thumbnails ...
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![[03] Cobra](/travel-photo/el_condor/asia_2005/1139221260/picture_019.jpg/tpod.html "[03] Cobra")
