This is Annie; a great lady. She is the mother of my two daughters. We were divorced 40 years ago. One of the benefits of growing old: we can't remember what we were mad about.
Annie loves to travel. It wasn't hard to talk her into a trip to India. We spent all of November '10 in India with side trip to Bali.
She is a good organizer. She does that for a living. So when she decided to come to India she did the research. She booked a tour and went all over northern India. Veranasi, Delhi, Taj Mahal, Jaipur and Puskar to name a few......by herself. She had a tour guide and a driver every where she went. I met her in Jaipur. We spent a day in Jaipur and then went to Puskar for the annual camel market/fair. It was a great trip. In the next few posts I will share some of this with you.
Here are two guys from the tour company. The one on the left met me at the airport in Jaipur and took me to the hotel. He made me suspicious. On the way to the hotel I asked him how much a rick ride around city center would cost. He told me INR 300. There isn't a 300 rupee rick ride anywhere in India. I am always wary of folks taking advantage of ex-pats. For his next trick he told me I was invited to dinner with a "royal" family. Annie was going and I could join her. For me however there would be an additional charge: INR 3500. I almost fell outta the car. That's $75 USD. I gave him a hard time and paid him anyway since I wanted to join Annie. He was an OK guy I just thought that was a little extreme.
I went to the dinner. It was interesting. The family hosting was actually the vestige of a royal family. Several brothers lived together with their families in a big home in Rajasthan. The meal turned out to be a INR 100 buffet but all-in-all it was an enjoyable evening.
The fellow on the right was one of the tour guides who took Annie around. She spent most of the tour with this fellow. His name is Jitendra Shekhawat. He was quite educated with a master's degree in Indian history. It turns out that it is possible to get certification to be a tour guide in India. He certainly had that and was very good. He took good care of us.
Rajasthan is a fascinating place. Jaipur is the capital. There are a lot of historic sites. Shown below is the Amer fort. It was actually moved to it present site in 1727. The popular thing to do is take an elephant ride up to the fort. It's a long ride and road is narrow and as the road approachs the gate to the fort it is steep and a long way down.
Annie's comment was,
"If they as you if you want an elephant ride up to the fort, say no."
"Get up on the elephant, have your picture taken and get back down."
Here's another elephant. Not the one Annie rode to the top. One that was on the walkway where I took the fort pix.
This guy was on the same walkway. They were all charging to have their pix taken. After all what is India without a snake charmer?
This next site is called the "Wind Palace". It was built in 1799. It's purpose was to allow royal ladies to view everyday life without being seen since commoners were not allowed to see their faces. Jatendra said they used to shop from those windows by lowering money on a string.
Here are a few street scenes from Jaipur.
We drove through this gate. It was one car wide. The police were directing passage.
These pix were taken a small grain and pulse market. I was interested because there were so many pigeons hangin' out and folks were feeding them.
I have included this because I thought it was so colorful. I bought a couple of T-shirts from the shop next door.
No trip to anywhere in India is complete without a stop at a craft shop. This trip was no exception. I thought is was an interesting shop. They had a lot of unusual stuff. I bought a Paschmina rug which I love. I bargained for about 70% of the original price but who knows what kind of deal it was however I do love the rug.
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