Jaipur: The Pink (and Boring) City

Today we headed out to see some sights in town, and find out why Jaipur is known as the Pink City. Turns out the entire old city was built using red sandstone--pretty simple explanation. You can really see it in the marketplace but that's about it. Underwhelming. We started off with Iswarat, basically a watchtower in the middle of the city. It had great views of Jaipur and our guide was particularly knowledgeable, so it was a good start.

Me and our guide at Iswarat

Then we went to the tourist trap that is City Palace--I don't think I took more than a few photos here, because aside from a textile museum, there isn't anything to see. LAME!

The coolest thing about City Palace

Next was the Hawa Mahal, which was slightly better but nowhere near the Amber Fort. After that, we hit the Bazaar in the Old City, and just walked around. Last, our driver took us to a place called Vishnu Gems because I mentioned I wanted to look at silver jewelry and he told me not to buy it in the market, cause you can't trust the quality there. I kind of went on a bit of a shopping spree, but I knew that was the main thing I wanted to buy on this trip--clothes take up too much space in my bag. And they kept feeding me chai tea, what could I do?

Tonight a girl came and gave me my first tattoo!--Henna, that is. Did you really think I would get something that visibly permanent on my arm? AS IF!

Tomorrow we're taking the train to Jodhpur. I'm sad to leave this hotel because it was so great, but excited for some, well, excitement. Blue City, bring it on.