Jaipur

Our last stop on our Indian grand tour was the city of Jaipur. Known as the "Pink City" for its use of pink sandstone everywhere, we toured the market, the Observatory and the fort.

This is called the Wall of Windows. (surprise surprise). As the ruler's concubines and wives were not allowed to watch the parades from street level, he built a wall with 300 windows so they could watch the festivities from above.

Yep. You can see how narrow it is. It's just a giant facade of windows... pretty cool though.

Our second stop of the day, to visit the palace/fort. Set high on the hill we get to take elephants up to the entrance.

Not your usual taxi stand.

On our way up!

A little bit of an elephant traffic jam. Definitely don't see that every day.

Steph and I share a ride on a slow elephant. Our guide was none to happy with her pace but I won't let him hit her with the pointy sword thingy. Poor girl.

I liked this view of the elephant exiting through the archway. Bye bye pachyderm!

One of the gardens inside the fort. The summer rooms were to the right and the winter rooms to the left. They were heated or cooled based on sunlight, fans and varying construction. Quite impressive engineering for being that old.

Inside the Hall of Mirrors. Mirrors everywhere!

Getting creative with the camera and the mirrors.

Steph checks out another part of the Hall of Mirrors. Very, very sparkly....

Looking at one of the outposts from inside the fort. Although I've never seen the Great Wall of China, the wall surrounding this place reminded me of it.

Balcony where the guards would supervise the concubines.

Getting the story from our tour guide. Poor guy probably got sick of herding us around the whole time.

Waving to the camera. Can you see us in the window?

The hunting lodge was set in the middle of a lake to stay cool in the summer. And I think to hunt all the animals who came to drink.

After forts and palaces, we went to the Observatory to see the world's oldest and most accurate sun dial. I must say, it is pretty impressive to have created something in the 1500's to keep time with the sun. However, this begs the question, if they are so good at keeping time, why are they always late?

Casting a shadow to get the time. Accurate to two seconds.

I just liked the elephant statue.

Lastly, flying monkeys. Definitely not something you see every day.

So ends my trip to India. I might throw out more pictures now and then as I'm still finding some good ones but for the most part, it is done. Now I'm off to the Alps for some winter fun... :O)