Jaipur, Agra, & Delhi pt 1

So I finally am getting around to telling you all about my tour of India after my time at Rising Star.

We left the Rising Star campus at 4am. Ugh. That was so early! I tried really hard to pull an all nighter with some of the other girls, but I think I'm just too old for that. I made it til 1am. And then slept until 3:15. Yeah. It was really hard to get up! We got our room cleaned, sheets off the beds, laundry bags out, etc. Thankfully, I was already completely packed and ready to go. It was such a hard goodbye! Probably just as hard to say goodbye to the coordinators as it was the kids. It was a long, bumpy ride to the Chennai airport, and was an interesting experience going through security. Men and women have to go through different lines, and you have to tag your carry-on. It was weird. Our flight left around 6am and we connected through two cities that I can't remember the name of. But we finally got there! We met Benson Massey from Abish Travels, who had set all our tour things up for us, packed up the tour bus, and headed out to Jaipur.

Jaipur is so beautiful! We first went to the city palace. Yep. I've been to a palace. It was so cool! Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed on the inside. :( But the rest of it was awesome! And we saw monkeys. They were running across the top wall of the inside courtyard. Plus also, some of the royal family was watching us. They were probably laughing at us and our touristy-ness.

After the palace, we went to a textile shop. They showed us how they hand print their fabrics, and the massive sewing room downstairs. We were then let go to wander the store and make any purchases we wanted. This is where I finally got my chudidar! It's 100% silk: blue polka dot top, white pants and scarf. And it's tailored just for me. :) I only wish I had also found some cheaper fabric and had a second outfit made, also. 

Oh yeah. And I saw and elephant in the road. It was awesome. :)

Our hotel was AWESOME!! Before going to the City Palace, we actually stopped off there to drop our bags off and have lunch. This was the first place I got to taste butter chicken. Umm...it is absolutely heavenly! By far my favorite Indian dish. Well....main dish. Naan bread is fabulous, too. And they brought us an endless supply. :) Plus also, the ice cream was to die for! It's made with water buffalo milk. And is super creamy. And delicious. Bags have to go through a scanning machine (like at the airports here) before they are allowed in the hotels. Weird. But whatev. Taking an actual shower for the first time in 2 weeks was SO GOOD!! I would say that I never plan on taking a bucket shower again, but I plan on going back to Rising Star asap, so that's not gonna happen. 

On day 2, we were supposed to go paint an elephant, but some people in our group were super slow pokes and didn't know how to show up to the bus on time. So we had to skip that part. Disappointing, yes. But I'll do it on one of my return trips. We saw more of Jaipur before leaving. I rode an elephant!! His name was Ralei. And the palace we rode up to was HUGE! And gorgeous. It's called the Amber Palace. We had a lot of fun exploring it. After that, we were on our way out of town and passed the place to ride camels. So Suniel (our tour guide) let us stop there, too. Yeah. I rode a camel and and elephant all in one day. My life rocks. :) The camel's name was Raja. I had to giggle a little bit because all I could think of was the tiger from Aladdin. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately my camera batteries died before we got back to the bus, and so I don't have a ton of pictures from the palace, elephant, or camel. We also explored a very expensive jewelry shop today. I wish I could've afforded some of those rings! They were so gorgeous!

After our epic camel ride, we hit the road to Agra. The speed limit on the highways there is SO SLOW!! I think the equivalent to about 45mph? Slow is all you really need. So it took a while. Suniel decided we needed to have people sing. So some of us got up and sang ridiculous songs (I sang the turtle song from Mill Hollow. It was awesome.) And then we had a dance party, Indian style. Aka to Indian music. I like their music....but can only handle it for so long. However, it was so funny to watch everyone get up and dance! I wish I had video of it. About half way to Agra, we made a pit stop at a step well that was built in the 9th century. Holy moly, it was so cool! 

And, I sipped my Coke on a $10,000 silk rug. That was neat.

We stayed at the Jaypee Palace that night. And boy was it a palace!! Seriously, the fanciest hotel I've EVER been in! The halls were wings and each wing had a number. And it was a maze. It was seriously so gorgeous! Because of the awesomeness of our hotel, we didn't eat dinner there (none of us would've been able to to afford it, most likely.) So we went out for dinner, and I had more butter chicken. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I had butter chicken for lunch and dinner every day of the tour. That's how good it is. 

Coming in part 2: Agra, Taj Mahal, Red Fort, and Delhi!