Dusty Cities (Jaipur: Day 2 of Delhi trip)

Driving through small and dusty cities in the morning and we were on our way to Jaipur- the city of palaces. Before entering the city though, we stopped at a beautiful fort on the top of a hill, it's walls expanding along the many hillsides around it. This was the Amber Fort- a fort built as the capital of Rajastan until the capital was shifted 11km away to the nearby city of Jaipur. The Amber Fort was absolutely amazing. The architecture blended styles of both Muslim and Hindu architecture and has a certain stereotypical "Indian feel" as it is an olden day palace on the top of a hill overlooking the sparsely vegetated mountains around it. The fort itself is camouflaged into the hills with it's yellow colored walls! The best part though about the Amber Fort was the way we got up the hill in order to tour the inside- we arrived in bus parking and unloaded, only to reload in smaller groups into the backs of about four black jeeps. I almost felt as though I was in the military sitting along the side wall of the car in the truck bed with six other people, looking out the open space at the back at all that we passed by going up the mountain. We saw wild boars in the streets (like dogs everywhere else the boars were in huge numbers wandering around!) and even TWO elephants! They were both simply walking together down the middle of the cobblestone road!
At the entrance to the fort there were lots of people selling souvenirs, but there was something that was WAY cool there also! A snake charmer! There were two men sitting on a blanket at the side of the steep road, one playing a small drum and the other playing a weirdly shaped flute with a basket in front of him where a snake's head stuck out and swayed slowly from side to side.
Inside we got a tour of the main parts of the palace and then rushed out and back into the jeeps to drive quickly back down the mountain to our bus to get going to our next destination on the tour- The city of Jaipur. Our first stop in Jaipur was to take photos of the Water Palace, a beautiful white palace that sits in the middle of a lake! You are unfortunately not allowed to go inside, so we took pictures from afar before continuing on to lunch and then to a handicrafts center where we got to see some material being printed in the famous Jaipur style- with wooden stamps and special dye.
Next was the City Palace of Jaipur. We got a tour of the inside and got to walk through several museums that had garments and jewelry worn by the King and Queen. What was really cool about going here though was that there were two flags flying high above us in a tower, a sygnal our guide told us that meant that the current "King" (he doesn't have any power but he is a descendant and WOULD be king) was actually there at the palace that day!
Our day in Jaipur finished out with an intense three solid hours of shopping. I went with a few women in our group and we walked the entire street back and forth, went to the next street and did that one also, and all left with at least (the least being me) three full shopping bags of new stuff! We then went back to our hotel (an EXTREMELY nice hotel!) and had a great dinner of Rajastani food before going to sleep for a few hours before having to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to report to our bus to go to Agra!
P.S. Above are photos of me in front of the Water Palace in Jaipur, and at the entrance to the Amber Fort.