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After a relaxing evening and some good sleep, we were ready for our last day in India. I knew from my previous trip, that the Amber Fort in Jaipur was pretty cool, so I was happy to have Ken/Karen see it too.
We enjoyed our last ITC breakfast, got packed up and ready to meet Basant and McCloud by 8am. Our first stop was to the Hawa Mahal or the Palace of the Winds. It is a very intricate front of a building in the old town, with hundreds of windows so the women could watch the street festivals without being seen.
From there we drove 12k to the Amber Fort, a spectacular palace on the hills outside of Jaipur. You can ride an elephant to the top, or in our case we drove through the narrow winding streets to the Fort entrance at the top of the hill. The Fort (or Palace) was built in 1592 and quite massive. Luckily we had Basant who took us through the various sections and since we were there early, we missed some of the large tour groups that were showing up towards the end of the visit.
While there were many parts of the fort that were beautiful, the most spectacular was the the Mirror Palace, which has hundreds of mirrors on the walls and ceilings. At night, with candles it resembles a twinkling jewel box. The other sections had great views of the lake, the surrounding hills and gardens. Not a bad place to live!
We headed back to town to get in a bit of shopping, as Jaipur is known for its textiles and gems. None of us are big shoppers, but we found a few cool things that fit well into the suitcase. At that point it was time for lunch, so we bid goodbye to Basant and enjoyed a nice meal at the Trident Hotel, on the lake.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, packing up and flying back to Delhi. We had a room for the evening at the JW Marriott at the airport, as Karen/Ken flew out at 245am, while I left at 445am. We were happy to enjoy a beverage with Mallika (our rockstar travel agent) and her husband Gandharv. It was fun sharing our experiences, especially since she was the one who arranged it all! I would definitely recommend anyone wanting to visit India, to work with Mallika...she has done a wonderful job for us both trips. Here is her website: http://www.airawat.com/
Since we are now home, we are fighting jet-lag but also looking back on a wonderful 4 weeks. My time with our team in Bangalore was so inspiring, and it was great to have some new resources ready to help our clients. The week traveling and with Ken/Karen was so much fun, with the highlight being the proposal at the Taj. Ken outdid himself on that one! (picture of the real ring is posted in the pics). We all agreed that the food, sights, sounds and especially the graciousness of the Indian people were amazing. Thanks for joining along!!
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