Amber Fort

Alarm call at 7. Showered, dressed and went for breakfast. Departure for 0830. The same woman who seated us last night was in the restaurant again and we ended up sat in the same original table. The coffee machine ran out of milk so I ended up with a super strong latte which I couldn’t drink. Rob tried the unsweetened masala chai. I didn’t like that.

We returned to our room and picked up our things. We made our way down to the lobby for just before 815. The group gathered together and we had to wait for John, the chap on his own. At one point I did wonder if something had happened to him but it transpired that he hadn’t received an alarm call and so was only just getting up and showering.

The coach took us to the Amber fort, driving through Jaipur and slowly past the outside of the palace of the winds. At the fort there were many hawkers which we had to dodge. Jeeps took us up to the fort and from there Shakeel took us around the fort. Whilst we were waiting in the initial area when Shakeel was getting the tickets. I did manage to get a conversation with John and he seemed a bit more friendly then.

The fort was interesting. We climbed all around and took a number of photos. We returned to the jeeps and it seemed chaos but soon we were on our way back to the bus.

Our next stop was at a textile factory. We were shown block printing and then taken inside for a samosa and some rum and coke. They got a lot of carpets out. The original guy talked about the carpets and his watchers then watched which of us seemed interested. They honed in on us and quite a few purchases were made. Rob bought me a very nice blue carpet. I felt it was ok because it was handmade, I’m a village, was wool and would last. It did cost £360.

They then showed us into the textile area. A big warehouse. I ended up buying silks. Green without embroidery x 4 meters, white with gold embroidery x 2 meters and then 3.5 meters of turquoise embroidered material. That cost £280. The plain silk he said was £28 a metre and the embroidered silk was £46 a metre. I shall get Gillian and Lottie to help me make something nice for Lotties wedding.

After the textiles we drove to the observatory. Here we saw how they had a number of sundials, astrology devices and other things. Amazing to see the science of the day. Built 300 years ago. All based on the Jaipur meridian.

Back to the bus and we were taken to a jewellers to see gem cutting. The gems were shown outside and then we were invited inside. Rob and I declined and got back on the bus. We ended up waiting quite a while. A few people bought things - Eileen and Pete bought a very expensive emerald ring. She was over the moon with it. Liz the gp bought some dress rings. Ailsa ordered a gold elephant but didn’t pay anything for it. They were all told they would be bought along to the hotel. Eileen was expecting it that night but Ailsa had been told to expect hers the following morning.

Cases outside at 615

That night we did get seated with the rest of the group but as we got up to go the waitress came and asked us to sign for two bottles of water. I kicked off at that point. So did Ailsa. We told them to take it up with Shakeel. It somewhat ruined the evening.