After another overnight trip - this time from Jaisalmer to Jaipur (~15 h) - we arrived in Jaipur. We had decided to splash out for what was our last night in a hotel in India, and we had booked the "Royal Suite" at the Hotel Madhuban. This was a very nice place to stay - a very elegant stately home style place - and our room was full of fabulous old furniture. After a few hours extra kip again, we breakfasted and headed out into the streets (on foot again) for the centre of Jaipur (but not before I had the chance to ride an *old* style bicycle around the streets on an errand to the train station - courtesy of the hotel - great fun!).

We wandered the streets for the day and visited a number of interesting places. One highlight was the ancient Royal Observatory (Jantar Mantar) - from the 1700's - which was full of surreal looking stone structures which all measured some aspect of the motions of the heavens - there were some pretty intricate things going on there - including a sundial that was ~30 m high!

By this time, we were completely comfortable with eating from the street vendors - things like samosas and pakoras were extremely tasty, safe, and only about 10 cents each...hard to beat! We also hid out at the ultra-posh Rambagh Palace hotel for a few hours - a dose of serenity that was much appreciated after a day of wandering through the incessant honking and two-stroke fumes on the streets!

From here, it was back to Delhi for me, and another day in Jaipur for the ladies. From all accounts they had a great day visiting Amber - the site of some great architecture and desert scenery - while i had a half day at the Red Fort in Delhi. Then, back to home...

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