THIS WAS BREAKFAST!! Luckily the hotels had “American” breakfast food and omelets in addition to their normal Indian foods. They use lots of spices.
Since black pepper is too spicy for me, I learned to avoid any foods that were yellow, orange or red. Deep green will get you sometimes, too.
Cows are sacred in India. You will be put in prison if caught slaughtering and eating them. They always belong to someone; but they are left to roam wherever they want. If you hit them with your car, YOU are arrested.
Cows just walkin’ down the road.
Click on the video. Our Tour Guide, Sameer, spoke the best English and was easiest to understand of all my foreign tour guides.
To break up our long busride to the next city, we stopped for lunch under this tent outside.
Here’s a menu from Delhi or Jaipur. You just divide the Indian Rupee price by 82 to get the US Dollar cost.
Paneer is cheese; and their cottage cheese is kind of like Feta cheese. I didn’t trust that those innocent looking soups weren’t filled with spice. I had the veg fried rice for $5.20 USD.
These 3 men sat cross-legged on top of the table to have lunch.
(I learned how to add text to my photos!)
After driving for quite some time after the lunch under the tent, we stopped for a potty break when a person in our tour decided she had left her and her husband’s passports at the restaurant 2 hours back. After a lot of stress while the husband went through all their suitcases (and we went off to eat ice cream), he found them both slipped in between the seats on the bus. WOO HOO! Calamity avoided!
That’s when Sameer broke out the Old Monk Rum to allay all the stress. The plastic cups were so thin, you could hardly hold it without squeezing and bending them. But once we passed out a bottle and half of it with Coke, everyone was in a MUCH better mood.
Sameer was an excellent Tour Guide. He ‘read the room’ and realized almost everyone drank. So breaking out the booze was brilliant.
We stopped our bus and Sameer and our driver’s assistant bought bananas and hay and fed it to the cows and monkies.
Feeding the sacred cows each morning adds to the good karma of one’s life.
I have a video of this, but it just won’t load. It’s a miracle I have figured out how to get a blog online; so I’m not complaining!
This was a castle submerged in the water. I still don’t understand if the windows were sealed and they could continue to use this castle or not.
We went to a jewellry store and were given a demonstration of the stones available. A couple people bought, but not many. I thought jewelry was spelled wrong, but EVERYWHERE in India it’s listed as jewellry.
More chaotic traffic.
We had 45 minutes to shop in this bargain-filled bazaar. The streets are so crazy, our Tour Guide had to get us across the street. He stepped out, held his hands out and we all acted “like sticky rice” and all kept walking as one unit, without incident.
I had a fight with a shopkeeper. I wanted a pashmina for $15. I don’t buy anything more expensive because I treat them badly and often use them to dry my hands when there are no towels in the bathrooms. Tom and I were invited to sit on a bench, as they often do, and the salesman started pulling out and showing me the scarves. They were $30 USD. I said I needed them for less. So he pulls out a couple more and they are $40 USD. He says that we “can discuss”. I don’t want to waste time because I would never get them for $15. So I leave. They were shocked.
I go to another shop and they offer pashminas to me. They are good salesmen because they see that I am already wearing one. I ask how much and he said 1,000 India Rupees, which is $12. So I go in and see the exact green one I want. Tom asks “how much American?” The guy says ten US dollars. I say I’ll take it and hand him a ten dollar US bill. He takes it and says “Thirteen”. I argue no. I turn to Tom and ask what the guy had told him and Tom agreed, $10. The guy is looking closely at the $10 American bill. They don’t accept marked, written on, torn and old bills. But this one was a crisp new one. Finally he says OK. They had put the scarf in a bag and put it into another bag. I didn’t trust them at all and pulled it out to be sure it was the one I wanted. It was. Done with the sale. So I got it for $5 less than I planned. Woo hoo.
I also asked for a coffee mug. They drink tea in India and don’t really do much of the coffee stuff. One guy suggested I go down a block and then turn and down another block to a shop that would have them. Tom and I left to go to the shop. Eventually I realized the first guy was walking with us to be sure we hit that shop. We had to go upstairs and I wondered if Tom would go with me. He did. (What a great travel partner!) I’m not sure that was a safe decision. We were upstairs in a warehouse full of stuff and he brought me to the coffee mugs. Unfortunately they were plain, without the name of India on them. I thanked him and he was disappointed.
Sameer told me I wouldn’t find a coffee mug in Varanasi, so I was very lucky to find a little cart selling a few perfect mugs outside the Bollywood restaurant.
This is the God Ganesh, an elephant god who removes all obstacles from your life. I LOVE that idea!
We were given flower leis as we arrived at the hotel. There must have been 50 flowers in the lei, and we tossed them out the next day. So wasteful.
Lovely hotel room!! Nightscape of Jaipur.
Took our bus to dinner. The men received turbans; the women scarves. Performing ladies did dances with five vases on their heads; adding one at a time — it was a looong dance. Then everyone got up and danced and afterwards there was a puppet show. It was perfect. It didn’t last long and it was really cute. The puppeteer could get the little puppet to twerk!!
click on the video to see puppet.
The gates to a city. Yes, a camel. Jaipur is called the Pink City. It was painted for some muckety-muck hundreds of years ago.
I looked it up: In 1876, the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria visited India on a tour.
The Palace of the Winds in the Pink City.
Great photo taken by Tom.
Took jeeps up, up, up to Amber Fort. See the wall of the original city. Women come to be photographed in this beautiful mosque.
We took the jeeps; but other tourists took elephants! Click on the video.
Who doesn’t like to watch elephants! Click on the video.
So much to see here!
I love an artsy photo. Some Indian man who worked here wanted my phone to take the photo on the right. I got a creepy feeling he was trying to steal it from me and I made quite an effort not to let him do it. A fellow traveler noticed and offered to take the photo. It WAS a lovely shot. I can be an Ugly American every so often.
Stopped a fabric store and got a demonstration on how they stamp the cloth. They have 4 different stamps and they stamp each one with a different color and it comes out just beautiful.
This place wove rugs (carpets). A young travel mate insisted the person behind the strings was not knotting each thread as they claim. She couldn’t believe the artisan was doing it so fast, that she couldn’t see it. The man with the fire torches the back of the woven carpet. That carpet was 3 – 4 months worth of work. Can you imagine him oops-ing and burning a hole through the rug?! The carpets were fabulous. A couple people bought one.
These are two sisters. They were both in London on the way to New Delhi when one sister was told her India visa had the wrong dates. The second sister left for India without her!! All the London officials were very nice and they got her the correct visa within 24 hours and she arrived in India just a day late. IT IS MY WORST NIGHTMARE!!!
These ladies selected the material, had themselves measured and outfits of 4 pieces were delivered to their hotel by 9:30 that evening. All for $150 each! Cool.
Sometimes translation is cute.
OUT OF WORK is too funny.
Yup. A beautiful horse. Maybe it was on its way to a wedding.
Went to the Astrological Museum, the Jantar Mantar Observatory. From the 18th century, they built these huge designs that could tell the time of day by the shadow the sun was making on the structures. Amazing.
Of course, you had an excuse for being late when it was cloudy.
They had a man there who could tell you your astrological sign and personality by getting your DOB, time of birth and place of birth. He read Felicia, who was a prima dona who showed up late, wore full make-up, high-heels, got a man to push her in a wheelchair thru the Taj Mahal, etc. He said “You are a princess and expect to be treated as such.” SPOT ON!
He read mine and said I was intelligent, fair minded, …….. OK, I only remember the intelligent part, but he was right!!!
These were doorways in the opulent City Palace, former royal residence, now a grand museum with an extraordinary collection of miniature paintings, costumes and armory. I love the peacock feathers.
It is opulent.
We got a demonstration of how they put on their turbans. Look how long that piece of material is!!!
He pulls it out full length, gathers it all up neatly, then unfurls it, grabs one end and starts winding it around his head. He adjusts it to sit properly on his head and he proudly displays it. Amazing.
More to come!
Linda Jeanne