Paying for internet delays posts

I seriously promise to stop giving you comprehensive descriptions of everything I do...

Eventually.

Sunday: Arrived safe and sound in Jaipur. It is known as the Pink City because throughout the old part of the city, it is, you guessed it, super embarrassed. 

PSYCH! It's "pink" (truly more on the apricot side, let's be honest). (APRICOT CITY DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME RING TO IT) Jaipur is located in the province of Rajastan, which means Land of Kings-- raja=king, -stan=land (e.g., Land of Paki, Land of Afghan, etc LOL). It's famous for textiles, jewels and gold and everything seems to be pretty elaborate here; our hotel is smaller and less cushy than the Hilton but everything is fancier (which I guess I loosely define as being made of marble). We explored last night and were rewarded with 1) a single firework on the roof of our building, accompanied by an Indian woodwind instrument covering Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" and 2) Kingshuk taking us to a local park that was totally worth it.

Monday: Woke up bright and early, as we planned to leave at 7:45. We were running a few minutes late, which turned out not to matter because Sucharita and Kingshuk waltzed into breakfast just as we were finishing. They are on India time. Oh, you're not familiar? India Time, similar to a lot of European Time, warps to fit YOU. Or whoever is later than you are. Americans are a little more picky about time being timely, but at least we're not Japanese (who, as Courtney tells me, announce an apology at the train station if they are ONE MINUTE BEHIND SCHEDULE). So we leave at 8:15, whatevs, riding through the Pink City until we come to the base of the mountain atop which sits the Amber Palace.

And guess how one ascends such a majestic mountain? By elephant, no less! I LIKE ELEPHANTS SO MUCH. In this portion, words are useless for describing how it looked, please view pictures for a better representation. However, it was (as Courtney put it) a "PETA nightmare". I felt really sad for the elephants; Kelsey and I were riding on a baby and a guy walking on the road behind us hit it and yelled at it. So even though it was really cool to hang out with elephants on a beautiful mountain, it was unfortunately tainted by the unethical structure.

Then we toured the heck out of the Amber Palace, explored various nooks and crannies, learned about the drama of the king and his twelve (official) wives--scranjulous, let me tell you--and took a jeep back down the mountain. 

After that, it was kind of a whirlwind of sly sales. We went to a textile and rug making place which was pretty cool (even the part that felt like a car sales lot, complete with slick salesguy) and gave us chai, a jewelry place (something cool about it is that there's no security! Apparently jewels are such a pride of the Indian people that no one even attempts to rob it. This is not permission or encouragement to try), and then some sort of "artisan market"... Whatever. Then to a bunch of the king's sundials to have the process of horoscopes explained (oddly mathy). It was after six at this point which meant that we had been touring for TEN HOURS. I was DONE for the day at 11AM. Zomb zomb zomb.

Additional notes:

-In one day, we saw three things in the Guinness Book of World Records! A very fancy rug (most knots per square inch--four thousand something), world's largest sundial, and a large water vessel (I sort of wasn't paying attention to the story here). It was indeed as exciting as it all sounds.

-People today were per-sis-tent when it came to selling to us. Jaipur is pretty dang touristy which means that while we didn't have to contend with staring and paparazzi, people were ALL up in our faces about selling. It happened everywhere: the line leading up to the elephants, while we were ON the elephants, before we went into the palace, immediately when we exited the palace, in stores, out of stores, on a boat, with a goat, in a box, with a fox, etc. The rug guy was definitely the smoothest, but HOLY COW. NONSTOP PEOPLE. I feel bad being rude and just not acknowledging anyone as we walk past, but if you even make eye contact, they will follow you around, and I don't want that. I don't like that it's becoming normal to ignore...

-There are SO MANY ANIMALS HERE. <3 <3 <3 In Delhi, we saw dogs and one cow (Kate thought she saw a second one but it turned out to be two guys in raincoats on a bike). In one day alone we saw elephants (doy), dogs (who are all so nice, I have not even heard barking since being in India), camels, cows (including bulls and one lone dairy cow), a horse, sheep, donkeys, a cat, monkeys, goats, a "hand llama" (Ro...), and flockloads of pigeons. "It's like we're in a petting zoo but I can't touch anything." -Courtney. Decision: I am going to found RETA- Rita Encourages Touching Animals. If I had my way, I'd be snuggling with every dog on the street.

-My dad sent me an email entitled "digestive health". It was awesome. Daddy, you're hilarious. I love you, parents. (And don't worry, I did switch back to bottled water for brushing my teeth here.)

And gentle readers, I love you too.