Axle’s not feeling too hot today. She seems to have a pretty horrible cough and just sounds generally groggy. I’m actually somewhat surprised that she is the first to get sick, but I don’t know if it’s a stomach thing or a chest thing. She thinks it’s just a chest thing, which may actually be more reasonable. Seeing that Henny and Karin are smoking, I guess the pollution and the dust won’t really bother them much….
We also wanted to ride a camel while we were in this part of India, but unfortunately, did’nt have any good opportunities….
We start off our adventures for the day by going to the Amber Fort. To get to the fort, we get to ride some elephants—two people per elephant. So, we have Axle and I on one elephant, Henny and the guide on another, and Amy and Karin on the third. It’s a pretty bumpy ride to the top—seems strange for royalty to pick such an uncomfortable ride, although I guess their platform would be laden with cushions and so on, right?
The fort itself gives us yet another chance to awe at the architectural and engineering skills—things like cooling rooms using systematically placed aqueducts and so on…. This fort seems to be the place to go if you feel like writing “So-and-so loves So-and-so” graffiti….
After we are done here, we head to the famous astronomical observatory—the place with the giant sundials and other instruments to use for horoscopes and so on. Again, a pretty impressive engineering feat.
Markers on one of the sundials…. We didn’t climb the biggest sundial there; it looked a bit intimidating. But it was pretty impressive to find out about the level of accuracy with which these instruments could measure time and so on….
Axle was feeling too sick to join us in the observatory, so she had to sit that one out. We decided it might be best if she rested for the rest of the day too, so we dropped her off at the hotel and headed out to get some lunch.
After lunch, we had to do the compulsory “Here. This is my uncle’s shop” tour-guide led shopping trip and then we dropped the guide off. After that, Raj took us to a big government store that actually had some very cool stuff, and Karin ended up buying Amy a very cool rug/wall-hanging made out of old rugs….
While there was still a little bit of daylight left, we went to a very interesting new temple—the Birla temple—and Raj and I got to confuse Henny by explaining the stories that she could see in all the paintings and carvings all around.
Before we went back to the hotel, we stopped to see if we could pick up something warm for Amy and Axle to wear. Then we went back, picked up Axle, and went to find ourselves some dinner before calling it a night.
There are several galleries of fun stuff….
Related posts (possibly):
- Thurs. Jan 25 – Jaipur forts and shopping Henny wanted to know the whole time in Jaipur, how...
- Sat. Jan 27 – In Delhi, living like royalty… What an interesting morning. We all woke up very well-rested...
- Fri. Jan 26 – Driving to Delhi… and a little bit of tourism…. Good roads really do make a difference. The drive from...
- Tues. Jan 23 – Where are the tigers? We get up extremely early and head out to find...
Wed. Jan 24 – Forts and Observatories in Jaipur
Axle’s not feeling too hot today. She seems to have a pretty horrible cough and just sounds generally groggy. I’m actually somewhat surprised that she is the first to get sick, but I don’t know if it’s a stomach thing or a chest thing. She thinks it’s just a chest thing, which may actually be more reasonable. Seeing that Henny and Karin are smoking, I guess the pollution and the dust won’t really bother them much….
We also wanted to ride a camel while we were in this part of India, but unfortunately, did’nt have any good opportunities….
We start off our adventures for the day by going to the Amber Fort. To get to the fort, we get to ride some elephants—two people per elephant. So, we have Axle and I on one elephant, Henny and the guide on another, and Amy and Karin on the third. It’s a pretty bumpy ride to the top—seems strange for royalty to pick such an uncomfortable ride, although I guess their platform would be laden with cushions and so on, right?
The fort itself gives us yet another chance to awe at the architectural and engineering skills—things like cooling rooms using systematically placed aqueducts and so on…. This fort seems to be the place to go if you feel like writing “So-and-so loves So-and-so” graffiti….
After we are done here, we head to the famous astronomical observatory—the place with the giant sundials and other instruments to use for horoscopes and so on. Again, a pretty impressive engineering feat.
Markers on one of the sundials…. We didn’t climb the biggest sundial there; it looked a bit intimidating. But it was pretty impressive to find out about the level of accuracy with which these instruments could measure time and so on….
Axle was feeling too sick to join us in the observatory, so she had to sit that one out. We decided it might be best if she rested for the rest of the day too, so we dropped her off at the hotel and headed out to get some lunch.
After lunch, we had to do the compulsory “Here. This is my uncle’s shop” tour-guide led shopping trip and then we dropped the guide off. After that, Raj took us to a big government store that actually had some very cool stuff, and Karin ended up buying Amy a very cool rug/wall-hanging made out of old rugs….
While there was still a little bit of daylight left, we went to a very interesting new temple—the Birla temple—and Raj and I got to confuse Henny by explaining the stories that she could see in all the paintings and carvings all around.
Before we went back to the hotel, we stopped to see if we could pick up something warm for Amy and Axle to wear. Then we went back, picked up Axle, and went to find ourselves some dinner before calling it a night.
There are several galleries of fun stuff….
Related posts (possibly):