Jaipur - Part I - the getting there

The kids were finished their school year at the end of March, so we decided it was time to see something. So we headed west to Jaipur - about a four hour drive (it is 250km). The roads are ok.

I brought my old purse camera and Isaac discovered the self-portrait setting :)


We booked this trip thru a travel agent, so we had a different car and driver, altho it was still a Toyota Innova. This one had a DVD player, but we didn't watch any VeggieTales until the trip home.

As always, there was lots of crazy stuff to see - starting with THOUSANDS of goats and sheep. And that is literal - we tried to count (Alex keeps a little booklet of the numbers of animals she sees) but it was simply impossible.

The giant herds were everywhere, and we saw lots of shepherds and goatherds too, looking really busy, like these guys :)

Later, we saw all these monkeys on the side of the road - eating bananas and bread that one of the fruit sellers tossed them.
We also saw a garbage truck


and a truck filled with fabric, going to be shredded and re-woven into cloth.


We also saw some overloaded trucks (this is VERY common here - MOST trucks on the road are over the weight limit, have had very little maintainance, and are disasters waiting to happen). and some painted up trucks (also common).

Jaipur is called the Pink City because the wall around the city was painted pink before a visit from a king, and it has been that way since. The walls of the old city are so cool - I love the thick walls and huge ornate gates. There are many many things to see in Jaipur - it is one of the top tourist attractions in India. It was so fun to just be away from home!

Our hotel was not really deluxe, but it was clean and not too expensive :) The city was full due to the Elephant Festival and the holiday weekend for Holi. There was a fold-out couch in the room, and we got a cot, so the four kids were in their own room. We had windows overlooking an intersection, interesting to watch the traffic, the people and all the regular crazy stuff.





This mural is in the hotel. This is a neat building we saw - Albert House. I think it is a governnment building, currently being renovated, so not open to the public.
I like the arches and the stone.
We enjoyed just driving around, but we started right into the sightseeing!