We were up early again the next morning so that we could do a full day of sight seeing and shopping in Jaipur as it was our last full day with the three of us together and almost our last day in India. In the morning Jacqui took Michele to her favourite shop….Fabindia!!!!!!!!, whilst Marc discovered it was a holiday in the post office (as usual!) and there was no parcel service that day. Jacqui and Michele spent a fun morning going through all the Saris, salwas, kurtas and table linen in the shop, turning the place upside down! Michele bought lots of nice things, including a really nice peacock green sari and the lady in the shop showed her how to put it on. Two and a half hours later Jacqui and Michele returned to meet Marc for a nice Indian lunch in a cute little restaurant playing cheesy dubbed music. After filling our bellies we started the walking tour of Jaipur, through the bazaar and the small shady streets of the old city (the pink city). Whilst we were walking through the bazaar we saw a tower that was part of the walls of the city palace, so we decided to go inside and climbed to the top to get a good view of Jaipur. Despite the traffic and noise, Jaipur was surprisingly green with trees lining some streets and a few parks. We had a great view of the sandy hills that surrounded Jaipur that were completely obscured at street level. It was getting late in the hot afternoon and we accidentally meandered through a touristy area near the city palace and we started getting hassled a lot. With the fatigue of our long trip travelling, the heat and the stress of being hassled Marc and Jacqui started to loose the plot, Marc was on another planet and Jacqui was having fits of giggles. Michele was starting to wander what was going on.
We decided that a time out was necessary so we went to see the last landmark before a well earned cup of tea. We arrived at the famous Hawa Mahal (palace of the wind) a huge big wall with 5 or 6 floors of carved and painted windows in the distinctive pink colour of Jaipur. Whilst Michele went in search of a scarf to match her new Fabindia purchase, Jacqui was squatting down on the floor outside the shop to rest. Some women wearing sari’s carrying pots on their head walked past and started giggling and pointing at this funny blond westerner in a salwa kameez squatting like a local on the floor. After this final effort we went and sat on a street corner and drank chai for an hour just to chill out a bit whilst waiting for the sunset. After sundown we decided to dive (bravely) into the textile bazaar. As expected it’s an amazing place full of colour, the shops were selling every kind of material, saris, salwa etc. Even though it’s a busy place it was much quieter that the main road, and nobody was pushing us to buy or even to see their shop- hurrah! Michele found some nice edging for her new scarf and we found a tailor to sew it on for 20 rupees. After that we were exhausted and it was time to go home. After a crazy tuc tuc ride we made back to the hotel where we hid for the rest of the evening sharing the last beer in the hotel. When it was time for bed we said our goodbyes to Michele, she was off to Bombay the next day and we were off to Delhi by train at 5 am (yuk!).
