India (3) - Ranthambhore to Jaipur

After breakfast, and the obligatory comment in the visitors book, we spent a little while in the gardens of the lodge photographing the birdlife, before being picked up by our driver for the journey to Jaipur.

The journey took about 4 hours, and gave us a close up view into both Indian life, and Indian driving!  The more you  experience the roads, the more you see the patterns through the chaos.  Roads are shared by pedestrians, cyclists, scooters and trucks as well as cattle, camels, wild boar and dogs.  Oh, yes, and the occasional car.  Somehow, through an intricate dance choreographed by car horns, everyone makes their way through the streets, passing within inches of each other, and rarely stopping.

Nearing Jaipur, we were taken to visit a temple, dedicated to the monkey god.  Needless to say, there were monkeys everywhere.  We kept ourselves busy photographing the architecture (which was grand, but had clearly seen better days), the monkeys, and also the children who were playing the pool.

Arriving in Jaipur, we were completely overwhelmed by the city, and the new scale of traffic we experienced.  We tried to photograph the stalls on the side of the road, but were invariably thwarted by passing scooters and rickshaws.

After lunch in the Peacock Restaurant, we were taken to our hotel, and shown around by the rather obsequious hotel manager, who told us 'everything about the hotel, including when it was built, and when it was not'.  We have an impressive room, with separate sitting area (with my roll-in bed) and a balcony.

After a sunset visit to the Tiger Fort, at the top of the hills, and near the Amber Fort which we are to visit tomorrow, we returned back to town, and had fun taking photos in the dark of the crazy Jaipur traffic.

We finished the day with dinner in the rooftop restaurant at the hotel, accompanied by folk music and dancing, performed by 4 teenagers.  The (girl) dancers were impressive, the (boy) musicians, rather less so.