Elephants and Cobras

I wake up hungry and refreshed. My fever is gone and I feel so much better...well, after a shower I do.

We breakfast and hit the road. On our way there we encounter a new traffic type on the road. I have gotten used to pedestrians, bicycles, rickshaws, camels, horses and cows in addition to what I would consider normal traffic. We even had a group of monkeys cross the road in front of our bus at one point. However, elephants were new to me.

It doesn't take us too long to reach the Amber Fort. We can see the elephant 'loading dock' with no line. Barbara is so excited that I can feel the energy from it. As the others in the group look at the waiting elephant, Barbara and I are the first to step up and get onto our ride. We are sitting on its back with our legs hanging off one of the sides of the platform. Shankar takes my camera from me and snaps a couple shots of us (which I am very thankful for) and then we are off.

For those of you who have never been on the back of an elephant, I will try to describe it to you. Imagine sitting on the back of a wide backed horse, sideways. Now imagine that with every step you feel like you are about to be pitched off that animal from one side or another. It was not really a gentle or relaxing ride. That said, we loved it. We had a great time with it. We were laughing and talking to our 'driver' the entire way up (about a 15 minute ride...these guys are not known for their land speed).

The driver (whose name I can't quite remember, Mugar, Mahir, definitely and 'M' word...we'll call him Mahir) was a pleasure to have. Mahir handed me his turban and took a picture of me in it. I handed him my sunglasses and took his picture in them. We were told that a 50 rupee tip was sufficient by Shankar. We tipped him 300. It's about six dollars. Worth every penny.

The actual Amber Fort was great. Some spectacular stone work to be seen. It houses the crystal palace. Bad ass, huh? Well, not so fast. It's not made of crystal. It is still made of the same stone that the rest of the fort was crafted out of, but, many mirrors, crystals and other reflective surfaces were attached and placed upon the walls. The inlay work of that palace was impressive. There are three stained glass windows within that palace are rumored to be amazing. I say rumored because you are not allowed to enter that palace. However, if you lay down on the floor outside of one of the entrances, you can get a peek at one of the windows. Yeah, I got pictures of that :).

There was no elephant rides down the hill. Apparently, animal rights groups have rallied and the elephants now get to take the down slope journey unencumbered by tourists. The elephants also have a limited number of journeys that they are allowed to take per day. So, to get back down to the bus, we 'got to' take a jeep ride down.

I am pretty sure that I have seen these jeeps in old episodes of M.A.S.H. I was a little surprised that were still running. One of the jeeps that I looked at had bald tires. Not like the treads were worn down, completely bald like racing slicks. I was thankful we were not in that one for the ride down hill.

After leaving the fort we hit an artisan education establishment; Gems and jewelry. Barbara and I have been looking forward to this as you can get much better prices on jewelry outside of the states (as seen in the prices of the jade and pearl prices we got out of China). We spend far too much time and money there. When we are finished dealing with one of the owner's sons in his office, our group is gone. The son calls someone over and has us driven to our next destination to catch up with our tour group. Personalized car service; yeah, that's how we roll.

Turns out our next stop is yet another artisan education establishment. This time for textiles. Due to our late arrival, Barbara and I get our own personal demonstration of how they do things there. The wood block stamping of the patterns kind of blow my mind. The speed and accuracy in which these guys are stamping the pattern on the cloth is mind boggling. It would take me hours to do what these guys are accomplishing in minutes.

We bought a couple items and probably would have spent much, much more there. However, we felt a little guilty for holding everyone up and rushed through. Also our salesman...uh...I mean artisan representative had a personality that neither Barbara nor I meshed with. His presence made us rush through and get out as fast as possible. And so we left without having a duvet custom made for us. Nor did I have any shirts custom made...a fact that I look back on and think that I should have done. They were 300-400 rupees a shirt. That's six to eight dollars. If I wore them only a couple of times each they pay for themselves. Custom shirting in the states can run into the 60's and up for each shirt. Such is life.

Seeing as I was still recovering from my lack of food from the previous day, lunch was a glorious, glorious thing for me. I ate food. I wish I could tell you what it was. I order something different every time we eat. I, however, could not tell you what those dishes were. I have had a rogenjosh, mutton curries, chicken curries and a chicken korma so far. Shankar and Barbara had been talking during lunch yesterday about what he was eating. He said that it was Chicken Tikka Masala, but different. He special orders it everywhere he goes and it is his favorite dish. Barbara asked him to order it for her today. Oh, it was good. I got to sample it alongside my dish...something with cashews and raisins in it. You like raisins.

Onto the city palace. Or so I thought. We made a stop at an old observatory before that. Astrology plays a HUGE part in Indian culture. So, this was a big deal. Sundials, and the like abound in this place. There was a calendar that told you what month and day it was based upon the location of a shadow of a marker. It also told you what astrological sign you were currently in as well as other 'markers' based upon the time of day. There was a sundial that the guide showed us that was accurate to 20 seconds. He showed us how to read it and I looked at my watch, it was off by 20 minutes. Then he told us that India time is calculated based upon the time in Agra, not Jaipur...which was a 20 minute time difference. Bang! Awesome.

Now we were on our way to the city palace. There were a couple of museums to wander through and not much time to do it in. In retrospect, I'm not sure why the visit here was so short. I guess that the couple museums would not interest everyone. If given enough time for someone to go through both of them with actual interest in those subjects the others would have expired in the heat. There was a gate called the monsoon gate or the peacock gate that I took some pictures of that was beautiful. Painted in blues with peacocks sculptures protruding from the wall over the doorway.

As we leave the city palace we come across a snake charmer with a pair of cobras. He gestures to us to come closer. We oblige him, the sounds of cameras snapping photos all around barely being drowned out by the tune he plays for his pets. He pats next to him offering a spot for someone to come sit next to him. It takes a few times of his urgings for some people to cluster around him. Nobody really wanting to get near the deadly snakes (FYI, these cobras have no poison, or so Shankar tells us). I snap more photos as Barbara is one of those brave enough to cluster around him.

As everyone peels away from him, he catches my eye and pats next to him again. I figure, what the hell, I hand my camera to Barb and go sit down next to him. My wife basically holds down the shutter trigger for the camera and the pictures tell the tale well. Allow me to elucidate;

I sit down next to the guy and he stops playing for a moment to bring the cobra basket closer to me. He then tells me to pet the cobra. Hehe...what? Pet the cobra. Why not? I pet the cobra. He says that I should drape one around my neck. Uh...wait...the cobra? My neck? "I hold. It no danger." Yeah...that doesn't sound like a good idea. I pet the cobra again. Again, he brings up the neck thing. He reaches down and picks it up and places it on my shoulder. I smile wide for the camera. Partially terrified. Partically thrilled. Then the funniest thing happened. He starts talking to me about tipping. "I make good picture for you. You tip. 200, 300, 500 rupees. No problem. I make good picture for you." I assure him that I am going to tip. Hoping that my wife is getting some good shots. I had been told that 50 rupees would have been sufficient for a picture with the guy and his cobra. I tipped him 300 (about six dollars). Again, like most things here, it was worth every penny. And Barbara got GREAT shots of the entire deal.

We return to the hotel fairly early (about 4pm) for dinner and some rest. We depart tomorrow back to Delhi.