Rajasthan And The Prince

After an afternoon train ride to Jaipur (population: 5 million and known as “the pink city”), in Rajasthan we arrive at our hotel that was a turn of the 19th century “honest to God” Palace. The place was old and worn but beautiful and a great setting to stay in on my continued journey back in time:The old city is surrounded by a wall and accessible through four gates –this is the Moon Gate:

There is a gigantic beautiful palace (the Amber Palace-3 centuries old), an external wall and extensive fort fortifications a short distant drive from the city:

The architecture is a combination of Muslim (6 centuries of control) and Hindi influences. There are lots of entertaining views on the road up to the palace.

Soooo….I was sitting in the lobby minding my own business watching Mindhunters on Netflix ( because we were not leaving for the train station until 9:30 pm for the night train) when an usual character with two dogs sat down on the couch across from me. We started to converse and he shared that he had lived in “the states” for twenty two years. He was having several glasses of wine and asked if I would like to meet his wife. He was the owner of the palace/hotel and had private living quarters on the second floor. My group had returned from a trip to the Monkey Temple and were chilling out in the lobby across from us. They were quite surprised when I left, especially when they had learned that he was the son (Prince) of the King who had opened the palace as a hotel.

When we came down from the visit to his wife we joined the group and he regaled us with songs. Not to be out done by the Irish in our group we had a lovely song fest and he provided us each with a shot of india’ s finest rum.

A walk through the town center gave us insight into daily life in this city where people shop daily for food, spices and flowers for temple offerings:

We had a lovely Indian lunch in a rooftop cafe across from the Palace of the Winds where the women of the Kings court who were not permitted outside could look out the small windows at life in the city:

We are taking our first overnight train to Udaipur. The sleeper is very basic but hopefully will successfully carry us to our next destination.