Elephant Ride in the Pink City

I went to Jaipur on a whirlwind weekend trip in mid-January with another HRLN intern who arrived a week earlier from Canada. We did as much as humanly possible in 54 hours, including two 5 hour bus rides, a fort, an observatory, a number of beautiful palaces and buildings, and a block printing museum. We also squeezed in a couple of good meals, sitting in a park and watching kites fly, and (unfortunately) a migraine that knocked me out for a couple hours. Here's another pictures-and-captions post and a map of where we went in Jaipur.

Hawa Mahal - the Palace of the Winds where the ladies could look out of the many windows and look down on the Pink City. I'm wearing my favorite kurta which has a block print pattern.

Beautiful stained glass windows

More pretty things at Hawa Mahal

 

Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur

This is our elephant.

Riding an elephant up to Amer Fort aka Amber Fort

Amazing detail on the ceilings

Inside Amer Fort is Amber Palace

And inside that is the Hall of Mirrors. So pretty!

  

This step well reminds me of an M.C. Escher drawing

We went to the Anokhi block printing museum and watched this artisan tap out a design in a metal block print. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but we talked to him for a few minutes and asked nicely and he said we could. If you look at the four blocks in the bottom right corner, you can see how they are all part of the same design and each block would carry a different color to the fabric.

Jal Mahal water palace

We had some free time after two days of running from one sight to another, so we took a break in a park in the center of Jaipur. I enjoyed some time with the kindle and watching kids and young men conduct kite battles.