Rajasthan with Dad - Jaipur, Amber Fort

(Text from my father's travel log.)
Hi All
We had an interesting day in Jaipur yesterday. We left the hotel around 8:30am and went to see the Winter Palace. OK but nothing special.






Then we went to the the Amber (pronounced with a long e like Ambeeer). It is the second largest palace/castle in the world. It is located on a hill top with a military fort on a higher hill above it. The royal family had a tunnel to the fort in case of attack.

That's where we're going!


Snake charmer - cobra is in the shade and hard to see but it's there
We rode an elephant from the base of the hill up to the palace. It cost 900 rupees ($18) for the ride. Helen and the kids were on one elephant and I had one all to myself. We got lots of pictures.

Heading up the road to the fort




The man in the white shirt is "Mr. Lucky" he's a photographer who takes our photo then tries to sell them to you at a crazy price at the exit. Last time I was here with friends Mr. Lucky followed us out of the fort and jumped on his motorcycle and followed us for many kilometers at high speed trying to convince us to buy the photographs.




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Fort is surrounded by a "great wall"
The palace was completed in the late 1500's - early 1600's. It has 100 bathrooms. After touring the main rooms we went down into the tunnel. We could only go a short way. It was mainly to show the access way and of course the hundreds of bats that were clinging to the ceiling. Fortunately, the tunnel ceiling at the entrance was 20 feet high, so no worry about the bats.


From the Amber we went to the City Palace. Don't know why so many palaces in one city and so close together. This one was more like a working palace where the Raja ran the state.


Rifle art