Day 120 Monday 15 January 2007 Jaipur

After breakfast we take an auto(rickshaw) to Hawa Mahal, the splendid pink Palace of the Winds facade Its a five storey high shield or screen with niches behind from which the ladies of the court could observe the goings on in the street without themselves being seen. Then in a repetition of I1’s earlier visit in December with I3 and I4, (Richard and Alexander), we walk to the Jantar Mantar, or observatory with Alice in Wonderland garden filled with giant sundials and various oversized astronomical instruments for determining time and horoscopes. Then its on to the nearby City Palace Museum with its displays of textiles, carpets, armoury (including the famous scissor daggers which spring open once plunged inside and cut one to pieces as they are extracted) and huge silver urns used by the maharaja to transport 18000li of holy Ganges water to London on his visit in 1908.

They are making a bollywood musical (or perhaps its just a videoclip) in the grounds of the museum and we watch as the two actors repeatedly stuff up their dance steps and the director gets increasingly irate. After that we take another auto to the southern part of the city to the Rambagh Palace, now a sumptuous hotel run by the Taj group, where we have tea on the veranda gazing at the peacocks and replica Scottish castle in the distance. The sun has set by the time we leave and head back through the old city to our hotel, where we stop off at a nearby craft shop . Big mistake as we emerge with two elephants as well as assorted pottery items.