Look up Jaipur on Google

We are in Pushkar now. a tiny - by Indian standards - town around a lake. Staying in an old house with a roof top patio shaded by a huge tamarind tree. In Jaipur yesterday we decided to cut out Jodhpur - just too much driving. We are also learning to work with our driver. Nishant has said it was our trip and the driver should not be steering us to his guides so he can get a commission. He insisted yesterday we get a guide in Jaipur while I kept saying that it would be dark soon after we arrived and it didn't make sense to pay for half a day. We got to the city palace parking lot at 3:50pm and met the guide. He said the things to see would close at 4:30, but we could photograph from outside. I said, no, we don't need a guide. Joan and I went into the Palace ourselves. Think about there being a city equivalent, say to Vienna, that you had never heard of. Jaipur is an old Moghul city with fantastic buildings lining the streets. Perhaps a mile or two of the same facade in dark pink in a wonderful facade all its own. The palace hinted at an opulence and sophistication equal to any European court. How much we don't know about the parts of the world we dismiss as 'third world.' Later we insisted on stopping the car so we could walk around. We ended up buying some slippers for each of us and a silver necklace and bracelet for Joan.