In the Raw

Had a super day today... after a week of going hard, it took us until about 1300h to tear ourselves away from our poolside camp and muster the gumption to re-enter India for another day of adventure.

We continue to be amazed by how completely Raw this country is. We hired a taxi to take us to the City Palace, which is located inside of the "Old City" of Jaipur, which is completely surrounded by pink fort-like walls. The palace itself was beautiful, and as I was admiring the delicate architecture, a bird shat on my head (mom, I feel you!). Our second stop on today's journey was a super interesting astronomy/astrology centre from ancient times, replete with all manner of Alice-In-Wonderland type sundials and other contraptions, which were used to keep track of both time and horoscopes. They put a lot of emphasis on horoscopes here - the 'Classifieds' in the paper here are called 'Matrimonials', and it's not uncommon for them to state 'Horoscope match a MUST!

As we were trying to negotiate the narrow exit of the astrology centre (being careful not to be run over by rickshaw, taxi, tourist bus or motorbike), traffic through the passage came to a screeching halt as 6-7 wild urban cows decided to take up residence in the passage, with a huge herd of monkeys looking on from an adjacent rooftop. As Deb and I were planning our strategy, something motivated the monkeys to suddenly come flying off the rooftop and nearly into our laps! Don't look now, there's a monkey on your back!!... close call. We explored the Old City a while longer, then hopped a rickshaw home. Highlight of the trip home was a random camel in line with the rest of us in rush hour traffic, which caused us to collapse into inconsolable giggles... what else can you do but laugh? In truth, it is quite awful for that animal (or us animals, for that matter) to be breathing in the toxic fumes of Indian traffic.

Tomorrow we are off to our Tiger Safari in Rathambore National Park... stay tuned!!