Hello everyone,
It was a very interesting day today. It was mainly a travel day as we drove from Delhi to Jaipur. It is only a 220 kilometer drive, that's about 150 miles. But that is a 6 hour trip on India roads. We traveled on their National Highway #8, a six lane divided toll road. But it's not quite like the toll roads back home. The picture below is one of the first things we saw on the highway.
This was our first time out of the city and into the rural areas. We passed through a lot of little towns.
No telling what you might see on the highway. I'm not sure you can make it out in the picture below, but we are waiting for a camel to cross the road.
In the picture below you can see some cattle having a rest in the median.
People drive just as crazy out here as they do in the city. Want to drive the wrong way into several lanes of on coming traffic? It's not a problem here. Pedestrians, cattle and just about everything you can image wander into traffic, and amazingly there is never an accident. We left the highway near Jaipur to go to the hunting lodge where we are spending the night. We drove through several rural villages on the way to the lodge.
There were interesting things to see on this road as well. Below is a goat stealing some food from three monkeys.
We saw this long line of ladies walking into this home. So we stopped to take their picture. It turns out that they were coming back from a wake because there was a death in the family. The tradition is that the ladies leave while the men stay behind for the cremation.
Below is a man sitting in front of a local store.
In the picture below you can see a bus packed with people. No room left inside so several people had to ride on the roof.
We finally arrived at the lodge. This place gives new meaning to out in the middle of nowhere. This is a former royal hunting lodge. There are only 14 rooms in the entire hotel, and our group occupies them all. So we have the entire hotel to our self.
The first thing we did was have a delicious lunch out on the lawn of the hotel.
After lunch they gave us our rooms. All the rooms are suites or mini-suites. Below is my room.
Actually we aren't supposed to be staying here. There was a computer error that caused us to lose our reservation at the hotel in Jaipur. So we are staying here tonight and will spend the following two nights at the original hotel. After getting settled we drove into Jaipur and visited the Birla Temple pictured below.
I almost got shot taking the picture above. Our guide said we could take pictures outside the temple. When I took this some guard came running over to me blowing his whistle and waving his hands. I walked the other way and he didn't chase me down, so luckily I didn't end up in Indian prison. After leaving the temple we returned to the lodge. It was a very interesting day. Some kids came up to us today and told us that it was the first time they had ever seen white people. They we very nice and polite and wanted to know where we were from and why we had come to India.
You will get this email late as there is no Internet here at the lodge. Sorry, you all must have been really disappointed when you didn't hear from me yesterday.
Tim
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