Jaipur

After a leisurely breakfast in the garden, we were picked up by our guide for our day exploring Jaipur - the Pink City. The first stop was the Amber Palace (pronounced Amer for all us plebs) built on the hill above the town. The town prospered when the King married the Moghul ruler's sister, or was it when the Moghul ruler married the King's sister. Anyway, it doesn't really matter as they were suddenly fighting on the winning side, and the plunder and tribute started flowing in. Soon the King had built a new fort, and a huge wall around the city.

We saw the Howa Mahal where the ladies of the royal household could observe the comings and goings in the marketplace without being seen. We heard about how the King had every building in the city painted pink in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales, so that the Prince would never have another welcome like it.

We fitted in a visit to a carpet making factory - 'No obligation to buy. You can hand it down to your kids' - and a visit to a gemstones and textiles factory - 'You can never have enough saris Memsahb'- before we took a break for lunch at a peacock themed restaurant.

After lunch it was the City Palace, now ruled by an eleven year old (which family isn't). The whole thing is an unashamed money making venture. You can pay for photos, you can pay for guidebooks, you can hire courtyards or rooms or gardens for your wedding etc etc. However, it was an attractive palace, and interesting to visit, especially to see how he had built 12 adjacent palaces for his 12 legal wives with secret passages to each in order to spend 'quality time' with them. However, only the #1 wife had a jacuzzi in her palace!

Lastly we visited the Jantar Mantar. Seems the King had a bit of a passion for astrology and astronomy, so he had a full observatory built across the road from the palace. The time is accurate to within 20 seconds after all these years. However, that was before G.M.T. was agreed, and the difference to G.M.T. moves every day, so you just have to take the accuracy at face value.

On the way back to the hotel, we severely tested our guides patience when we got him to stop at a couple of electronics markets trying to replace a card reader I left in Kathmandu.

A bit of a rest, then dinner in the hotel restaurant.