Sunday, May 27, 2012

Day 4: On the road again

Our fourth full day in India was another long travel day. Six hours in the bus again, at least this time we’ve put in enough distance in to really start to see a chance in scenery. There were patches of Easter egg-colored neighborhood amid the sea of brown dust, larger homes and apartment buildings, and mountains (well Oklahoma-style mountains) as we entered Jaipur.

Today we broke up the trip with a stop at the deserted city, Fatehpur Sikri and a delicious lunch at an air conditioned café in the middle of nowhere. It made the trip much more bearable to stop and have a little fun in the middle.

Raj, our guide, added a driving tour of Jaipur to the evening’s itinerary. I think he wanted to show off his home town a little. He even had our bus driver take us to the market for a quick shopping trip. Jaipur’s market was the first we’d seen. I expected more marketplaces.

We only had 30 minutes to wander the streets and shops, but it was fun. The sidewalks were crowded with merchandise and shoppers. The store owners called out as you passed, “Free to look, cheap to buy!”After the violently pushy vendors in Egypt, Jaipur’s market was like a stroll through the mall. We left with an arm full of bangles and dozens of photos.

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