An Elephant ride too far

This morning we are up early and off to the Amber City Fort, our guide is on board and is full of information on the city and the fort. We arrive at the fort and are instantly approached by the street sellers with their many items available for sale, from hats to brightly coloured mirrored umbrellas.

They all start at crazy prices and our guide tells us to work on a price of about 1/3^rdof what they are asking. We have fun bartering and some of our group buy hats and souvenirs from the street sellers.

The elephant ride is hilarious, especially as I take mine with my colleague David who has a fear of heights. The seat is not comfortable at all and we both feel that we have arrived on an aerobics work out for the thigh and stomach part as we try to stay upright. The Elephant handler eventually pulls out a foot rest which makes life a lot easier. As we trek up its hot and our elephant every now and then sprays us with water! I never knew they could store that much water in their trunks!

The view is excellent and it is another opportunity to take some breath taking photographs. At the top of the fort our guide is there to meet us and continues the tour explaining the history of the Amber City Fort and shows us the many courts, stairways, pillared pavilions and palaces.

We head down the hill by jeeps and walk through the last part of the fort at the bottom that has many stalls selling gifts and local products. We are instantly approached by the local photographers who have taken our photographs on the elephants and are trying to sell them at the highest price possible.

Our guide has told us not to pay any more than 50 rupees per photograph and that if we haggle enough we should get them all for that amount. Most of us give up at 100 Rupees and pay that for all of the photographs, just to get them to go away.

We are back in our bus and off to the wonderful Oberoi Rajvillas Jaipur for lunch and an inspection tour. The villas are amazing, wonderfully luxurious, spacious and a real treat for anyone choosing to stay here. It is definitely a hotel you would check in for at least 2 nights and enjoy the pampering that the hotel has to offer.

Lunch is served in their fine dinning restaurant and we are spoilt with a choice of dishes including some international options. I have Consommé soup and vegetable linguine followed by crème Brule. A perfect lunch which we treat ourselves to a couple of glasses of their white wine, a Chilean Sauvignon blanc. The same one we had in Shimla at the Oberio wild Flower, but twice the price here in Jaipur.

After lunch we head off to the City Palace (which still houses the royal family), Jantar Mantar (the royal observatory) and Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds) but we don’t stop to go in as we do not have enough time to see all of them before closing time at 5pm. Instead we head to some of the wholesale shops to haggle for some pashminas, saris and the brightly coloured puppets we saw at the Tree of Life hotel. Best buy of the trip so far, 2 for 100 Rupees. We head back to our hotel, the Jai Mahai Palace and have time for a quick shower and back our for a hotel inspection of the ITC Rajpuntana and a very late dinner.

We arrive at the ITC Rajpuntana to find the reception is undergoing renovation and therefore has a make shift reception which has a strong smell of petrol, glue and paint. It is not a pleasant experience and we are glad to get into the heart of the hotel and away from the smell. The manager takes the time to show us around the hotel and some of the various room categories.

The first room we see has just recently been vacated and has a very strong smell of smoke, definitely not for the European market. Even our one smoker can’t stand the smell of stale smoke in the room. The room size is good and is decorated well with good sized beds, well appointed bathroom and good room views. Its not as quirky as our hotel and for the same money we definitely have the better option. After viewing all the rooms, restaurants and the spa we head to the buffet restaurant for dinner.

Its well after 9pm and the buffet has been open for quite a few hours which shows as the food choice is limited, tired looking and not at all appealing. I opt for the vegetable consommé soup and some plain bread, my only other vice of the night is some ice cream and a mint panacota dessert, which I later live to regret.

At last 11pm we head back to our beautiful hotel the Jai Mahal Palace and off to bed in preparation for another early start to head to Agra.

Day 7 – A Tour of India