Our hotel was a former palace. There is still a room reserved for royalty only ($15,000 per night).
We saw some snake charmers on the way to the Amber Fort. There are lots of snakes in India, and snake charmers are still very important to remove snakes from houses and help with snake bites. Since they don’t kill the snakes, and don’t have good medical care, India has the highest rates of snake bites in the world.
We got a tour of the Amber Fort /Amer Palace (built in the 1600s) in Jaipur. We got to ride in the back of pick up trucks to get up the narrow, steep streets to the fort. Elephants are another option.
The “small wall of India”
We had a tour of a textiles factory, demonstrations of block printing fabric and carpet making.
We drove through the Pink City—old colonial part of town all buildings are required to use the same color of terracotta pink.
We had a business visit to Jaipur Foot where they make prosthetics for free. They use flesh-tone PVC pipe (heated up) and interesting technology for the knee joint. They don’t turn anyone away, most done within a single day but if not they can sleep in the dorms. We had a detailed presentation from Dr. Mehta the founder. Our group was able to give them a generous donation. Many of the workers have prosthetics themselves.
We drove to the outskirts of town to ride elephants–ours was a 28-year old named Lakshmi.
With a few others, we attempted to take a tuk tuk ride to McDonalds. Our driver didn’t know where to go, and there were too many of us in the vehicle. Although finally got there, McDonalds was closed for remodeling, but we were able to walk to Dominos nearby.
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