Cobras, Peacocks, Camels, Elephants and Monkeys

This weekend I headed off for my last weekend getaway and had a delightful time exploring the northern city of Jaipur – which is also known as “the pink city” because it’s painted pink (but really I think it’s a peach city and wrongly named). I'm now officially obsessed with "doors" too, because the doors here are incredible!

I took a great bus tour and saw many majestic palaces and forts (Laxminarayan Temple, Hawa Majal, Observatory, City Palace, Jaigarh Fort, Nahargarh Fort, Amer Fort & Palace, Kanak Vrindavan, Jal Majal and a star show at the Planetarium). Each place held many intriguing discoveries, and the palace/fort courtyards were filled with snack charmers playing their music for dancing cobras, decorated elephants and camels giving tourist rides, wild peacocks and monkeys.
At one fort, I saw a monkey steal someone’s bag of Frito-Lay chips, run off, tear it open and start snacking! I thought the marketing dept would appreciate this shot...
Later one big monkey scared the heck out of us when it jumped right on our table at lunch and stole Ashwi’s bottle of juice!


We did some fun shopping and as usual - ate a lot of food and drank a lot of tea! One night at dinner we were offered a kitchen tour, which was a cool experience until I saw them refilling the Aquafina water bottles (just like in Slumdog Millionaire). I think that some things you're just better off not knowing...