Thursday : fine

It was a nice relaxing day in jaipur, we went into town for a walk around. We got to see the aftermath from the festival partying the night before. there was so much firework debris everywhere, it's going to take awhile to clean up this mess. Somehow I don't think it's on the top of the to do list, all the rubbish will probably eventually get swept into a pile and the burnt, or eaten by a pig or goat.

We stopped to have a look at Hawa Mahal from the front this time. it's a great looking five story building. There are 365 peep hole windows, one window for each day of the year, for the royal ladies to people watch from.

Next was a drive up a windy road to the top of a hill, where Jaigarh fort is. It was free admission because we bought city palace tickets the day before, bonus! It was a maze of tunnels and long dark corridors, it was slightly unmaintained, giving it that sort of abandoned look. It was great, heaps of uninterrupted exploring to do. Except for when people wanted to take our photo, but we got a few people to take photos of us too. It was quite amusing watching them trying to figure out how to use our camera, three or four people had a go before they got it right.

Jaigarh fort was massive, it had plenty of courtyards, a second palace and gardens for the maharaja and co., to retreat to when the Mongols came and took over things for awhile. The fort being in the high hill top location, was never conquered. We walked along the boundary walls high up over Amber fort and the pink city below. It was a smoggy day so the long distance views were restricted, but we could see Amber perfectly. We didn't get to go up the watch tower for the best views in town, it was closed. Jaigarh also had the worlds largest wheeled cannon on display, to be honest I thought it would be bigger. We had fun, we went everywhere, even places we were not supposed to go, the guards were probably having a lunch break and we went down into the out of bounds garden. A lot of people were pointing at us while we were down there so we didn't hang around for too long.

After the 2.5 hour exploration we made our way to some gardens that are at the bottom of Amber fort. There were lots of locals there resting having picnics, probably recovering from the night before. We walked around for a bit back up the hill to see some elephants and monkeys mucking about.

After a drink in the park and more photos of us we went back to the hotel for some food, resting and catching up on the diary. We were going to meet the driver later for some night activities.

We met the driver when it was dark, and he took us into old town. It was like Las Vagas, the streets and buildings were lit up like the SCG, everyone was out walking the streets in their Sunday best, having a great time. People were everywhere the roads were closed. There was music, dancing, fireworks, street cooking, and stalls galore. We hopped out of the car and had a good hour walkabout, it was fun. Everyone was in top form, being very friendly to us on their night of nights. It was spectacular, if tonight was anything to go off, last night (dewali festival night) would of been crazy.

We met up with the driver and were due for a feed. He dropped us off at a restaurant were the food was unreal. We had Paneer spinach and tandoori chicken. Then we went back to the hotel, and we did the usual choc shop for the movie, which was speed.