Day 3
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Day 3: Sunday 1st December

Palace of Winds façade; astronomy; City Palace of textiles/clothes; Amber Palace; dinner with dance, puppets, turbans; rickshaw racing.

Andy does not have a good night. He did shout at me a few times to stop snoring, but he just didn't get any sleep, as far as I can make out. The adjacent mosque and calling to prayer at 5am didn't help, either...

We take auto-rickshaws to the amazing facade of the Palace of the Winds and walk around the 'walled city'.

Our first scheduled stop is at the Observatory (Janta Maha/Mantar). The guide is inundated with requests for character readings based on time and date of birth (to Indians, the astrology of the stars is just as valid as the astronomy, so 'spiritual' readings are made with great authority).

Then the City Palace, just around the corner, including the textile exhibition (not a great draw for Andy, Graham, or I...!!!).

We are then released from the itinerary, so we wander out of the Palace and after a lot of debate (surrounded by hawkers) the various factions form groups to test their inate senses of direction... with the net result that everyone gets back to the hotel - ultimately - OK. The faction I end up with comprises Alex, Sally, Jo, Alison, Carolyn and I; as we get further and further away from the walled city Alex, Sally and Jo grab an auto-rickshaw, and we pursue it (why not?); the hotel's about half a mile, as we find out, straight on and right.

We get back and the auto-rickshaw people - together with some of the other groups - are by, or in, the pool eating cheese and tomato sandwiches, and tempting people into the unheated water (hee hee!!). More and more of the group arrive and follow their example (with sandwiches, not with getting in the pool). The last to arrive is Frances... who, running late, chatted up an Indian on a motorbike, filled his tank up, and got a lift back to the hotel.

There's an optional tour this afternoon to the Amber Palace/Amber Fort - and we all take it (so it's only a convenient 133 rupees each for the coach).

It was at the Amber Palace that you could take the ascent by elephant; one group took the elephant, the others of us walked up (which proved to be considerably quicker!!). Frances, one of the walkers, plays peek-a-boo with a baby monkey up the ramp to the fort - and gets lynched by mother monkey.

At the fort, Frances agrees to take a photo of a group of Indian lads - with her own camera...!!! Initially, Frances tries to convince Jo to also be in the picture... but Jo is reticent... Photo taken, they give her an address to send the photo to on a slip of paper!

The descent from the Fort was not without incident: Chris falls over - spectacularly - grazing her leg, bruising her shoulder, and cutting (and bruising) her eye.

Dinner is an auto-rickshaw ride (Alison and Carolyn manage to hit a cyclist) to Swabhi Restaurant,  a large courtyard of tables, complete with entertainment area. There are one or two other (foreign) groups already here.

After dinner we watch dancing, which starts normally, then becomes more difficult with a stack of pots, then with the pots and on glass, then picking up notes with the stack of pots; this leads to stick dancing and audience participation.

Then we have a puppet show (!), where Kirby is enrolled to pull out the extensive tongue of the puppet; Jo's attempt at an action shot mis-fires when the puppet disappears just before she takes the photo.

Seeing as the turban museum is attached to this restaurant (there's also hand readers and mystic doctors to consult if you can tear yourself away from the ongoing entertainment) the next demonstration is given by a man with the 'longest moustache in Rajasthan' (proudly displayed and photographed for a fee). The demo is of turban tying; but, of course, passive education gives way to audience participation, which, considering the rich picking of males in our group, means that Graham, Andy, Kirby and I also have a go. Andy's turned out to be a yellow doughnut, Graham's was an awe-inspiring (i.e. huge) December red, Kirby's was a neat pink (with rose), and I think mine was a Xmas tourniquet - it did roll, though.

Somewhere in the midst of all this Alison, Sally, Gill, Susan, Caro and Chris also managed to get palm readings, but the mystic doctor, ironically enough, was off sick. Frances is also able to nip off to phone her biker boyfriend from yesterday, as promised.

The amateur turbans rolled to disintegration, we have a scan through the turban museum along the bottom of the restaurant (where we learn the monthly turban colours).

With very little prompting the journey back to the hotel became Rickshaw Rally. Pelting along the crowded streets of Jaipur with cars, cows, urinals, lorries and other rickshaws all whizzing between us we ran the gauntlet with each other and all lived to tell the tale - amazingly. For posterity, Alison and Carolyn came first and I was 3rd with Andy; the drivers were as jubilant as we were ("I am number ONE! I am number ONE!!" declared the winner, jumping around).